Many readers of this magazine will be familiar with John Searle's classic 'Chinese Room' argument against ascribing consciousness to Artificial Intelligence. Due to my experience building AI systems for business applications, I have a different take on Searle's argument than most others. But first let's look at his argument.
The Chinese Room
Searle introduced the Chinese Room in a paper published in 1980, called 'Minds, Brains, and Programs' (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol.3, no.3). The paper begins with the following thought experiment: Professor Searle is locked in a room. He can't read Chinese or even distinguish Chinese characters from Japanese. He's given four sets of paper. The people giving him them have labels for each set, although Searle is not aware of their labels. I'll put the labels at the beginning of each numbered item, along with Searle's description in quotes:
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