1. Searle on Artificial Intelligence Minds, Brains and Science Chapter 2
Philosophy 224
Searle on Artificial Intelligence
Minds, Brains and Science Chapter 2

2. Strong AI
Strong AI: Functioning of the brain is analogous to the functioning of a computer. The brain is just a digital computer, and the mind is just a computer program.
The claim is that we will eventually develop computer hardware and programing of sufficient complexity to mirror precisely the functioning of the human mind—we will have intelligent computers.
Central to the project of Strong AI is the idea of a formal system. A computer can perform any function that can be formalized (reduced to abstract symbols, the manipulation of which is defined according to the rules of the system).

3. Another Type of Mind and Body?
As Searle points out, Strong AI seems to be a natural extension of some descriptions of the mind (like functionalism) for which mind is not tied to any specific biology, but rather arises from definable, law- like processes.
Clearly, this is not a project that sits well with Searle, for whom (as we’ve just seen) the solution to the mind- body problem necessitates a strong connection between the mind and the biology of the brain.

4. Syntax, but not Semantics
Searle’s criticisms of Strong AI center on the fact that formal systems lack any means to deal with semantic content—they are purely syntactical systems.
Syntax: in linguistics, the grammatical structure of a language, or the study of that structure; in logic, the analysis of the structure of sign use in a formal system.
Semantics: the study of meaning, of how signs refer.
So, Searle objects to Strong AI because there is more to the mind than merely syntactical processes. The mind has content as well as structure and Strong AI con provide only the first.

5. The Argument
Essentially, Searle’s criticism boils down to the conclusion that because computers can’t deal with semantic content, they will never be able to think.
Here’s the argument (focusing on the software/mind side):
Programs are syntactical.
Minds have semantics.
Syntax by itself is neither sufficient for nor constitutive of semantics.
__________
Conclusion: Programs by themselves are not minds.

6. The Chinese Room
Searle provides us with a thought experiment to show how the lack of a semantic register is fatal to the project of Strong AI: Chinese Room Thought Experiment.
When Searle analyzes the thought experiment, what he highlights is that there doesn’t seem to be any understanding in the system.
There is formal analysis and manipulation, but that’s all syntax.

7. Where is the understanding?
If we try to identify what’s going on in the thought experiment, we can see transfer of symbols, transfer that follows the syntactical rules of Chinese, but it is hard to identify any understanding of the semantic content.
There are only a few places where we could locate semantic understanding.
The person in the room? Don’t have to understand any Chinese to manipulate the symbols.
The translation system? This raises a possible objection that we will go into in a moment, but Searle denies it, insisting that there would still be a syntax/semantics gap.

8. Objections to the CRTE
The CRTE may prove that a specific sort of ‘computer’ cannot successfully reproduce intelligence, but that does not prove that all ‘computers’ cannot do it.
In a sense Searle would accept this. Searle holds that the brain is a computer of a sort, but the brain gives rise to consciousness and understanding using machinery that is non-computational (this is his biological naturalism).
There is an ambiguity in Searle’s analysis, in particular his use of the word ‘understanding’. He seems to be using a very limited and perhaps artificial meaning of the term understanding (look at what he says on p. 33).
This leaves open the possibility that there is understanding at the system level. What sort? System understanding—being able to manipulate the system successfully.