Searle's Argument Analysis

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The idea of creating an artificial intelligence is becoming ever more popular in our society. Featured in movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and Ex Machina, many present artificial intelligence as mysterious entities that are dangerous to society as a whole. As the technology that humanity has at its disposal continues to improve, many fear that the threat artificial intelligence presents in these movies will become a reality. Even Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX said that artificial intelligence presents a “fundamental existential risk for human civilization” (Sullyman). Thus, many believe that artificial intelligence is an all-knowing robot that wants nothing more than the destruction of humanity due to the …show more content…

They argue that the Chinese Room experiment is flawed, and thus Searle’s argument falls apart. Virginia Savova and Leonid Peshkin have created a thought experiment similar to the Chinese Room, but instead argues that a machine not understanding something does not make it unintelligent. They designed their thought so it is similar to the Chinese Room, but it has a few key differences. The man can speak Chinese, the story is about a cheeseburger, the questions are about the cheeseburger, and the man does not know what a cheeseburger is. The creators argue that in this experiment, the man would be unable to answer questions about the properties of the cheeseburger that are not specifically given in the story. This results in the man being unable to answer questions about the cheeseburger and the people on the outside of the room will become under the impression that the man in the room does not speak Chinese (Savova & Peshkin). By Savova’s and Peshkin’s argument, one cannot consider a machine unintelligent because of it doesn’t know what something is. While this may be true, it misses the point of Searle’s argument. He doesn’t argue that a machine must understand everything it comes across, it just has to comprehend its own responses in the conversation (Cole). A human isn’t disqualified from the consideration of intelligence because they don’t know what a cheeseburger is, but they aren’t considered intelligent if they use big words if they don’t know what they

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