philosophy

Definition

Chinese Room

The Chinese room argument holds that a computer executing a program cannot have a mind, understanding, or consciousness, regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. 1

Example

Imagine I sit in a room. I don’t speak Chinese. I pull out my laptop, get Google to translate the note, then pass the response back out the door. Someone outside the room then starts to believe I speak Chinese. Likewise, just because something behaves as if it has a mind, does not mean it does.

2

Footnotes

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

  2. How To Build Conscious Machines