I’m a robot, You’re a robot, She’s a robot, ‘Cause we’re all robots.
The Robot Reply for strong A.I makes an attempt to explain possible mental states that exist in robot systems. John Searle gives his own argument to the reply in hopes to show that it is misguided and falsely demonstrates the existence of strong A.I. However, the Robot Reply when applied to the learning process of human can show that humans learn in much the same way as a machines under the conditions of the Robot Reply. If that machine doesn’t understand, then neither do people.
Searle’s argument to the Robot Reply for strong A.I supposes that strong A.I could not be possible even if we had a robot that possessed the ability to take in various inputs from the outside world. The Robot Reply states that these inputs would come from video cameras that enable the robot to “see” while a computer inside the robot would process the inputs and return necessary outputs. This robot would function in much the same way that a human would as it can see and act just like people. Thus, proponents of this argument claim, the robot can be like a person and has proper intentionality and understanding. Searle replies one could just replace the functioning computer “brain” of the robot with another Chinese Room experiment. In the end the camera would just provide more Chinese symbols for the computer brain to manipulate.
Human beings come to understand the world around them by taking inputs from their environment and directly applying them in ways that aid the overall survival of the person. If you think about it, learning things like languages are similar to this robotic system Searle imagines. For example: think of a girl learning chinese. Instead of the computer inside of the robot’s head we have a Chinese instructor. This Chinese instructor doesn’t teach students Chinese but just tells students what to write when they encounter certain symbols. In this case the student would be behaving much like the Chinese Room.
The difference between a girl and a regular robot is that the girl possesses a more significant source of inputs, namely vision. Suppose throughout her studies the girl always encounters the Chinese symbol &^&^. Later that year she goes on a study abroad trip to China and finds the character &^&^ on every restaurant signboard. The girl goes inside the buildings with the &^&^ symbol and sees people eating inside. Through a series of experiences and encounters with this symbol, the girl finally concludes that &^&^ must mean “food”. One could reasonably say that the girl has learned the meaning of &^&^
The same case would apply to the robot as it learned Chinese. A robot could use a multitude of inputs from cameras, microphones, or touch receptors and it could gain valuable information about the world that would enable it to interact in meaningful ways and in essence gain enough info to learn what &^&^ means. If in the end the robot does not understand, well then neither does the girl.
