🚀 go-pugleaf

kpfleger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Karl Robert Pfleger) writes:
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Thus, this argument is less about what computers can or cannot do, and more
about definitions and semantics and, especially, the awarding of labels.
If AI programs cannot "think," then perhaps we need some new verb to
describe what it is that they do and how this process differs from both
traditional, algorithmic "computing", and human "thinking".
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You mention three processes:  1) what AI programs do, 2) algorithmic
computing, and 3) human thinking.  However, there are at most two
distinct processes here.  That is, AI programs + hardware + some
intelligent being to interpret the results = algorithmic computing.
This is a basic concept.  There are no programs that run on computers
that are not algorithmic.

The question is whether 2 and 3 are equivalent.  The strong AI
position is that they are.  But the whole point of the Chinese Room
argument is that Searle can be doing something that falls in category
2 yet not be doing 3, AND can be aware of the fact that he is doing 2
and not doing 3.

-Fred Gilham  gilham@csl.sri.com