Searle's Argument Analysis

Introduction The object of this essay is to depict as to whether or not artificial intelligence (A.I.) is possible from the use of arguments by Alan Turing, John Searle, and Jerry Fodor. To accomplish the task at hand; I shall firstly, describe the Turing Test and explain how it works, secondly, describe Functionalism and to detail on how it allows for future A.I. Thirdly, I will describe and explain Searle’s argument and example of the “Chinese room”, and finally I shall describe and explain a few replies to Searle’s “Chinese room” argument. However, due to the time constraint I will be unable to fully analyze Searle’s reply to all of his critiques, rather I will now state Searle’s counter to the objections with a simple point; they all are inadequate because they fail to come to

is false. To accomplish this, Searle uses the example of “the Chinese Room” to challenge strong AI, and to object to Turing’s test. Searle begins by stating to imagine himself in a room with a box of Chinese characters which he could not understand, but in the room he had a book of instructions in English which he could understand. Searle then states that if there was a group Chinese speakers’ outside of the room passing him messages in Chinese, he would not understand, but could reply with the symbols in with the use of the instructions to form an appropriate response. Furthermore, Searle states that the Chinese speakers would think that the speakers were speaking to a Chinese speaker; however, realistically they were talking to a confused John Searle. Therefore, as Searle states, if a computer were to be placed in Searle’s position, the rule would become the “computer program”, and the basket of symbols the “data base”, it would prove that the machine would not understand Chinese, but only simulate that knowledge, which is not truly