Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!radford Newsgroups: comp.ai From: radford@ai.toronto.edu (Radford Neal) Subject: Re: Can Machines Think? Message-ID: <90Feb12.205915est.10612@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> Keywords: Chinese Room, Searle Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto References: <(14069@s.ms.uky.edu> <>> <898D02hl87rd01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <12214@csli.Stanford.EDU> Distribution: comp Date: 13 Feb 90 02:00:16 GMT Lines: 45 In article kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes: >Searle has carefully separated the CR example from the rest of his >argument about AI, and I want to follow him in that. The CR does a great >job of splitting out one human capacity from the rest of thinking. Searle >wants to focus on learning meanings... I think this is one of the places where Searle goes seriously wrong. "Meanings" have no meaning outside the context of consciousness in general. To illustrate, let's consider the question of whether an air traffic control computer understands the meaning of the word "airplane". Certainly, we wouldn't say it understood "airplane" if it, say, issued instructions to pilots that would make sense only on the assumption that airplanes can fly under water. But, asks the skeptic, even if it does a wonderfull job of air traffic control, does it really understand the word "airplane"? The answer is: Who cares? If turning over air traffic control to the computer reduces the number of accidents, I (and I presume everyone else) am all in favour of doing so. Debating whether the computer understands the word "airplane" is something best left to those incapable of doing anything useful with their time. Now consider a computer that is said to understand the words "love", "fear", and "courage". It is clear to me that any entity that truely understands these words has the moral status of a "person". Conversely, I would not consider any entity to have such moral status if it didn't understand, to at least some degree, at least some such concepts. [ I will ignore here the problem of entities that are, perhaps, only embryonic or degenerate persons, such as babies and the severly demented. ] Given this, it is perverse to discuss in isolation the question of whether the computer really understands "love", "fear", or "courage". The answer hinges on the whole question of whether the computer is a person, a question which we will answer in accord with our empathic sense. I will believe the computer is a person, and understands those important words, if and only if I recognize in it the essential attributes that make my own life valuable. Unlike the question of whether the air traffic control computer understands "airplane", this question has real implications - a computer that is a person has the moral rights and responsibilities of a person, with all that implies for our actions. I don't think this question can be answered by sort of debate that accompanies the Chinese Room Problem. Radford Neal