Re:The Chinese Room Argument
by hackeraccount on Monday February 04, 2019 @10:29AM
(#19077063)
I take the Chinese Room to be a reaction to the Turing Test. The Turing Test also avoids defining understanding but it seems to say that we don't need a definition of understanding - if something appears to understand then it does in fact understand.
The Chinese Room attempts to refute that idea by saying that you can get the effect of understanding with a methodology that obviously lacks the gestalt that we associate with understanding a subject.
Personally I'm a sketptic of hard A.I. in general. Conscious to me seems like a magic trick - in that the only magical thing about it is that it will disappear once you know how it's done. Which makes it seem like a black box that can only be created if you don't know how or what you're doing.
The Chinese Room attempts to refute that idea by saying that you can get the effect of understanding with a methodology that obviously lacks the gestalt that we associate with understanding a subject.
Personally I'm a sketptic of hard A.I. in general. Conscious to me seems like a magic trick - in that the only magical thing about it is that it will disappear once you know how it's done. Which makes it seem like a black box that can only be created if you don't know how or what you're doing.