Chinese room and program identity

Abstract

The Chinese room argument is famous argument introduced by John Searle, in which Searle presented various problems with the claim that it is possible for the artificial intelligence to have understanding of a language in a way in which intelligent beings such as humans have that capacity. The argument was influential enough to, in decades following it, sparke numerous responses and critiques, along with a few alleged improvements to it from Searle. In this article, I will analyze one atypical critique of Searle’s argument, made by Mark Sprevak. Sprevak, unlike the other critics of the argument, agrees with Searle that understanding does not exist in Chinese room in any way, but he claims that Chinese room cannot execute every possible program, like Searle claims. Because of that, Searle cannot conclude the strong conclusion he wants from The Chinese room argument. In this article, I will analyze Searle’s argument, I will give a brief overview of typical responses to it, and I will analyze Sprevak’s response. In the last section, I will present argument that shows that Sprevak, if he wants to keep his conclusions, must either give up one part of his response, or accept one of the typical responses to Searle’s argument, thus making his own response dependent on the response from others.

rgument poznat kao Kineska soba je slavni Serlov argument koji je pomoću jednostavnog misaonog eksperimenta pokazao razne probleme sa tezom prema kojom je moguće da postoji veštačka inteligencija koja ispoljava razumevanje kakvo je svojstveno inteligentnim bićima kao što su ljudi. Sam argument je bio dovoljno uticajan da u decenijama posle objavljivanja donese veliki broj odgovora I kritika, kao I nekoliko Serlovih pokušaja poboljšanja argumenta. U ovom tekstu obratiću pažnju na jednu atip- ičnu kritiku Serlovog argumenta, koju je izneo Sprevak. Sprevak za razliku od uobičajenih kritika prihvata da unutar kineske sobe nema razumevanja, ali tvrdi da kineska soba ne može izvršiti svaki program kao što je to Serl mislio, I da utoliko misaoni eksperiment nije dovoljan za jak zaključak koji Serl izvodi. U tekstu ću analizirati Serlov argument; izneti pregled uobičajenih kritika; analizirati Sprevakovu kritiku, I izneti argumente koji poka- zuju da se Sprevak, da bi izvukao zaključke koje želi, mora odreći ili dela svoje kritike ili dodati I jednu od tipičnih kritika uz svoju, čineći time svoju kritiku „zavisnom“ od drugih