alt Hacker NewsI'd appreciate if you tried to explain why instead of resorting to ad hominem.
> I think it's entirely valid to question whether a computer can form an understanding through deterministically processing instructions, whether that be through programming language or language training data.
Since the real world (including probabilistic and quantum phenomena) can be modeled with deterministic computation (a pseudorandom sequence is deterministic, yet simulates randomness), if we have a powerful enough computer we can simulate the brain to a sufficient degree to have it behave identically as the real thing.
The original 'Chinese Room' experiment describes a book of static rules of Chinese - which is probably not the way to go, and AI does not work like that. It's probabilistic in its training and evaluation.
What you are arguing is that constructing an artificial consciousness lies beyond our current computational ability(probably), and understanding of physics (possibly), but that does not rule out that we might solve these issues at some point, and there's no fundamental roadblock to artificial consciousness.
I've re-read the argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room) and I cannot help but conclude that Searle argues that 'understanding' is only something that humans can do, which means that real humans are special in some way a simulation of human-shaped atoms are not.
Which is an argument for the existence of the supernatural and deist thinking.
Replies
> I cannot help but conclude that Searle argues that ‘understanding’ is only something that humans can do, which means…
Regardless of whether Searle is right or wrong, you’ve jumped to conclusions and are misunderstanding his argument and making further assumptions based on your misunderstanding. Your argument is also ad-hominem by accusing people of believing things they don’t believe. Maybe it would be prudent to read some of the good critiques of Searle before trying to litigate it rapidly and sloppily on HN.
The randomness stuff is very straw man, definitely not a good argument, best to drop it. Today’s LLMs are deterministic, not random. Pseudorandom sequences come in different varieties, but they model some properties of randomness, not all of them. The functioning of today’s neural networks, both training and inference, is exactly a book of static rules, despite their use of pseudorandom sequences.
In case you missed it in the WP article, most of the field of cognitive science thinks Searle is wrong. However, they’re largely not critiquing him for using metaphysics, because that’s not his argument. He’s arguing that biology has mechanisms that binary electronic circuitry doesn’t; not human brains, simply physical chemical and biological processes. That much is certainly true. Whether there’s a difference in theory is unproven. But today currently there absolutely is a difference in practice, nobody has ever simulated the real world or a human brain using deterministic computation.
> I'd appreciate if you tried to explain why instead of resorting to ad hominem.
It is not meant as an ad hominem. If someone thinks our current computers can't emulate human thinking and draws the conclusion that therefore humans have special powers given to them by a deity, then that probably means that person is quite religious.
I'm not saying you personally believe that and therefore your arguments are invalid.
> Since the real world (including probabilistic and quantum phenomena) can be modeled with deterministic computation (a pseudorandom sequence is deterministic, yet simulates randomness), if we have a powerful enough computer we can simulate the brain to a sufficient degree to have it behave identically as the real thing.
The idea that a sufficiently complex pseudo-random number generator can emulate real-world non-determinism enough to fully simulate the human brain is quite an assumption. It could be true, but it's not something I would accept as a matter of fact.
> I've re-read the argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room) and I cannot help but conclude that Searle argues that 'understanding' is only something that humans can do, which means that real humans are special in some way a simulation of human-shaped atoms are not.
In that same Wikipedia article Searle denies he's arguing for that. And even if he did secretly believe that, it doesn't really matter, because we can draw our own conclusions.
Disregarding his arguments because you feel he holds a hidden agenda, isn't that itself an ad hominem?
(Also, I apologize for using two accounts, I'm not attempting to sock puppet)