No. He doubts strong AI. But weak AI is certainly possible. This is why the destinction between strong and weak AI is made.
Weak AI at best.
Searle came up with the Chinese Room argument in response to everyone getting way too excited about computers in the 80s and 90s. Scientists and philosophers were saying, “The mind and consciousness is just a computer with hardware and software.†“We can crack the code and make a learning brain on a computer!†They proposed exactly what you have said, “created a program that completely models itself after the human brain…”
You can call a program “artificially intelligentâ€, but Searle would consider it weak AI not strong AI. I am not sure if I believe strong AI is possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI
The point that hits home with me is that the computer program that dkane is creating is just manipulating syntax of some sort of base programming language. His program isn’t necessarily learning or thinking. It could certainly never become self-aware or sentient.
“Searle states in his Chinese room argument that information processors carry encoded data which describe other things. The encoded data itself is meaningless without a cross reference to the things it describes. This leads Searle to assert that there is no meaning or understanding in an information processor itself. As a result Searle claims that even a machine that passed the Turing test would not necessarily be conscious in the human sense.â€
bdhanes, what I meant as AI was strong AI, i.e., a thinking robot. I’m not a proponent of weak AI, as I don’t believe it actually counts as AI.
I also don’t digress that merely passing the Turing Test would constitute as consciousness. Weak AI would work as any other computer program would - taking stumulus and producing a fitting effect, as in cause and effect.
But when I referred to a brain, I meant it this way: what if a brain was created that exactly followed a human brain, and worked the same exact way. It was artificially created, but followed an actual, living brain. It wasn’t made of the same materials, but it worked exactly the same way, and it had senses that are connected to it, it had an input source and an output source.
"Searle deals marvelously with the idea that anything can function as a computer, and so as a brain:
Computationally speaking, on this view, you can make a "brain" that functions just like yours and mine out of cats and mice and cheese or levers or water pipes or pigeons or anything else provided the two systems are in [Ned] Block's sense, [b]"computationally equivalent."[/b] You would just need an awful lot of cats, or pigeons or water pipes, or whatever it might be. [p. 207]
Searle points out that, “nobody says you can make carburetors out of pigeons” [p.207]. The problem with pigeons is that they are not materially suitable, do not have the appropriate “physical effects,” for use in automobile engines. To think that brains could be made out of anything that formally mimics a computer algorithm implies that the material constitutents of brains are irrelevant. But, what’s worse, the “material” content of minds is internal, subjective, and intentional (Searle’s italics here):
…because the really deep problem is that syntax is essentially an observer-relative notion. The multiple realizability of computationally equivalent processes in different physical media is not just a sign that the processes are abstract, but that they are not intrinsic to the system at all. They depend on an interpretation from outside. [p. 209]
In other words, syntax is only syntax from an intentional point of view, and this presupposes, and so cannot causally explain, minds (Searle’s italics):
…notions such as computation, algorithm, and program do not name intrinsic physical features of systems. Computational states are not discovered within physics, they are assigned to the physics. [p. 210]"
Well, you’ve got to remember that binary is just a series of electrical charges. Therefore, since our brains are made up of electrical charges (neutrons, and, at an even deeper level, the supposed strings or other energy charges) then I don’t think it matters whether or not it runs on that binary, or on our version of binary, which is our synapses firing.
However, just so that you can answer, I’ll say that no, it doesn’t run on binary.
I don’t have a response yet… I gotta run to Jiu Jitsu class right now. I’ll post when I get back from getting my ass kicked and wiped across the floor!
In the meantime, what do you make of Searle’s “Computational states are not discovered within physics, they are assigned to the physics.”?
By the way, if somebody starts talking about the intricacies of Sartre or something, pardon me if I sound stupid because I’m only 14 and am still just reading about Plato.
Kudos to you, DKane - it sounds like you’re approaching the issue with practicality and rigor, which is what philosophy needs more of.
Bdhanes:
I’m very familiar with the Chinese Room argument, and I buy it to a point. Certainly humans, with finite brains and finite lifespans, are only capable of a finite number of input-output responses. You could write all possible ones down in a book, together with the appropriate conditionals, and you could have thus put an entire person in a book - albeit an enormously big one. This book could (with the right kind of reader) generate the same output as a human, but no one would consider the book to be a mind, or self-aware, or whatnot.
But it seems ridiculous to me to suggest that this argument shoots down all strong AI. There could presumably be artificial neurons, which might operate differently from true neurons in their inner workings, but produce the same output given the same input. If you replace any of our neurons with these fake neurons, based on everything we know about neurobiology, everything should work the same. If you replace EVERY neuron with these fake neurons, you shouldn’t change how the brain functions at all. If you create an identical artificial brain using these neurons, and put it in an identical artificial body, it should act exactly as the real person with the real body.
Now, we’ve already agreed that just because it acts the same doesn’t mean that it possesses a mind. This is certainly true - but how do we tell the difference? Saying that the book is not a mind is easy - but saying the artificial brain is not a mind seems almost entirely like bias, without good justification. At the least there would need to be a good reason why one would make that distinction - and saying “different materials” doesn’t really make sense. I mean, different neurons have different concentrations of different materials all the time. Some neurons use serotonin, some use dopamine, some will be differently hydrated, blah blah blah. It’s arbitrary to draw a line between metal and non-metal - a deeper underlying reason has to be given to insist that a difference exists.
This is where I’m fuzzy. Do you know any reason why we should discount the artificial brain? If not, where do we draw the line?
I’m not discounting the arbitrary brain, I’m supporting it.
I said different materials because it’s a purely hypothetical situation, and computers are made of metal. That would be an artificial brain. Since it works like ours, and we consider ourselves intelligent, then that would be Artificially Intelligent.
However, using a chatbot (even if it takes in and “remembers” knowledge) still isn’t AI, it’s just a computer program.
Shaney, I entirely agree. I see no reason to accept the chatbot as a mind, and no reason to discount the artificial brain as a mind. So the question is, what separates the two? It seems you could make better and better chatbots until you have one that can chat just as well as a human. Then you can have it “chat” on other levels - attach arms, give it “chatty” body language. Eventually you’ve made a “chatbot” android that is indiscernable from being human unless you take an x-ray. Would you say that this machine has a mind? If not, why not? And if so, that means that there must be a “has a mind / doesn’t have a mind” line between the simple nowadays chatbot, and the android. Where would that line be?
I’m not attacking your position - we seem to agree on this stuff, so far anyways. I’m just voicing the unanswered questions that are in my own mind. Most philosophical questions are easy for me to answer to my own satisfaction (although not always to others) - this one has me honestly stumped.
The difference is that it is still using the book of English language, i.e. the rulebook, in order to talk. Just like Searle said: it doesn’t have a consciousness, it just follows the rules. A chatbot will never have a mind as long as it just follows the rulebook.
The difference between humans and this chatbot is that we are capable of understanding the rulebook, if we reason it out. The chatbot will never be capable of this, as it is a just a reiterating program. People, however, have a mind.
Before I respond to your “what’s the line” question, I would ask you one: are animals Intelligent? In other words, do they have the ability to make choices, or do they just follow the rules of cause and effect (what is best for them)?
Excellent post Twiffy. You’re probably less fuzzy than I am. I can’t find the quote right now (or am too lazy after getting the shit kick out of me at Jiu Jitsu) and I’ll probably butcher it, but Searle basically says at one point in Mind something along the lines of; Until we can have a better understanding the specific intricacies of the mind (neuronal firing etc.), many of these questions will remain very open. [I think this was regarding consciousness] I think I butchered it…
I wish I was discussing this stuff at 14. Way to go! You’ll be able to run philosophical circles around me by the time you’re my age. (If you aren’t running around me already!)
He’s the one not posting. 
