AI

There is a famous thought experiment in philosophy of mind that has haunted AI research for over forty years. John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, introduced in his 1980 paper “Minds, Brains, and Programs.” With a level of cultural sensitivity typical for his demographic and era, Searle asks us to imagine a person locked in a room, receiving slips of paper with Chinese characters written on them. The person follows an elaborate rulebook (aka an “algorithmic program”) that tells them which characters to pass back through the slot in response. To an outside observer, the room appears to understand Chinese. Searle’s point: it doesn’t. The person inside understands nothing. Syntax is not semantics. Symbol manipulation is not understanding.

The argument has generated more philosophical commentary than perhaps any other thought experiment since Einstein rode his imaginary locomotive. Functionalists, embodied cognitionists, systems theorists and armchair philosophers have all taken a swing. Most of the swings miss, because they accept Searle’s premises and argue about the conclusions.

I want to challenge the premise. Specifically, I want to enlist a mentor of mine, Prof. George Miller, known in many circles as the father of Cognitive Science. After Miller retired from teaching, he started the WordNet project and I met him over a summer internship helping to build the lexicon that anchored a generation of Natural Language Processing.

[Editor’s Note: This post has been sitting in my drafts folder since August 2021. I have preserved the original datestamp, though it was first published almost five years later. Or, maybe this draft mysteriously showed up in today’s mail…]

A few weeks ago I was reminded of the oversized importance of the US Post Office to our democracy. As a student of Prof. Richard John, I am keenly aware of How the Post Office Made America. Many have recognized the Post Office’s role in the American Revolution - the special flat rates for political pamphlets and newspapers enabled their distribution - the bloggers and tweeters of their day, safe from the prying eyes of the British mail carriers.