edith@ai.toronto.edu (Edith Fraser) (02/09/90)
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
(SF = Sandford Fleming Building, 10 King's College Road)
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COLLOQUIUM
SF1105, at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday 27 February 1990
Stevan Harnad, Editor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
"Minds, Machines and Searle"
The philosopher John Searle's celebrated "Chinese Room Argument" has not
stopped causing frustration in the artificial intelligence (AI) community
since it first appeared in 1980. The Argument tries to show that a computer
running a program can't have a mind even if it can pass the "Turing Test"
(which means you can write to it as a pen-pal till doomsday and never have
reason to doubt that it's really a person you're writing to). Searle shows
that he can do everything the computer does without understanding the
messages he is sending back and forth, so the computer couldn't be
understanding them either. AI people think the "system" understands, even
if Searle doesn't. Searle replies that he IS the system... Having umpired
this debate for 10 years, I will try to show who's right about what.