Can Computers Think?  Guess what? We are not the first to ask this question.  Suppose you answer “yes”. Brings up other questions, e.g., should computers think?  There are lots of opinions on the “can” and the “should”. Our textbook says yes to both.  Others say no to the first or no to the second.

Two “full-range” Tests

Last Week Looked at Turing Test Playing the computer, winner of the 2003 Loebner prize, Jabberwock!

This Week Look at Chinese Room Searle argues that even if a computer could pass the Turing Test, it still would not have a mind.

Searle attacks what is called “Strong AI” The thesis of Strong AI is also called "computationalism," according to which cognition is just computation, hence mental states are just computational states: Computationalism. According to computationalism, to explain how the mind works, we need to find out what the right computations are -- the same ones that the brain performs in order to generate the mind and its capacities. Once we know that, then every system that performs those computations will have those mental states: Every computer that runs the mind's program will have a mind, because computation is hardware-independent: Any hardware that is running the right program has the right computational states.

Strong AI More Forcefully (1) The mind is a computer program. (2) The brain is irrelevant. (3) The Turing Test is decisive.

Let’s Get Back to This Set up a type of Chinese Room study in class.

Slightly Different Angle