The Chinese Room Experiment | The Hunt for AI | BBC Studios

Can a computer really understand a new language? Marcus Du Sautoy tries to find out using the Chinese Room Experiment. Taken from The Hunt for AI.

[sgt]

The point of the thought experiment I believe was to show that even if a computer has general intelligence (or strong AI) it would still not necessarily be identical to the human mind. It could still lack consciousness. It knows how to achieve ends by adapting to its environment and choosing the right means. However, it may still not be aware. It could replicate human intelligence in every but it still may not be conscious and therefore does not have a "mind" that would enable us to say it's just like us.

[plzou]

It's funny this "Chinese girl" doesn't even write right sentences on those slips.

[Alkis]

It is good to see people on the comment really focused on the relevant aspects of the video...

[darkless]

The song throughout the video is: To build a home by A Cinematic Orchestra

[blerst]

"If a computer's actually following instructions is it really thinking? But then again what is my mind doing when I'm actually articulating words now? It is following a set of instructions."

[Aya-hocw]

it's kind of cute to think about a computer this way🥺 they don't know what's going on theyre just trying to figure it out

[Theskybluerose]

did anyone else who reads Chinese notice how the girl wrote the wrong character which cause the whole sentence to not make any sense? Instead of 不 she wrote 上

[dirkbastardrelief]

Lease efficient explanation of The Chinese Room ever

[anaisbordes]

thank you so much for that! You made me understand the importance of such an experiment

[slayermate]

“Your Chinese was perfect”
Me who only have learned Chinese for 2 years: no…his wasn’t

[chaosun]

misspelled Chinese... Can you find somebody who really understands Chinese to write?

[TheHappyKamper]

True AI will be when the computer is the one asking the questions.

[IPatricio]

The point of the experiment is to show that whether it was a human or simply a computer program generating outputs based on the input, the human doesn't understand Chinese, so you wouldn't say the computer program "understands" Chinese either. Concluding the Strong AI hypothesis is false.

[sashika]

There’re so many Chinese people who master both English and Chinese, but BBC found the one who cannot write such simple Chinese characters right.

[poisonedcheeseproductions]

If we actually pay attention to the question this video asks instead of whether or not the girl speaks chinese, its much more interesting however. My view is that we, as people, associate words with images, emotions, events, or things which actually take place within the state of affairs of our universe; computers do not. they have no meaning to attach to these words. Our minds differ from a programmed AI because of this. It seems simple to me. Any philosophers in here?

[arcline]

My understanding of the Chinese room experiment is that digital processing machines, such as computers, could become virtually perfect at syntax, but never possess a scintilla of understanding of semantics; i.e could output responses that would pass any Turing Test model, would sound highly intelligent, but that same machine generating such outputs could never understand the meaning of anything it output.

[darkless]

Well to be fair those phrases were really easy, and the time it took for him to reply would make it apparent to the Chinese guy that he couldn't really speak Chinese

[MeeCee]

This seems like a pretty simple and straightforward experiment, but what happens when a word has more than one meaning?

[geoffwhite]

It goes astray from Searle's argument at the 1:00 mark b/c the computer does not/ cannot introspect about whether it understands, or knows what it is doing, etc. The machine cannot understand anything, says Searle, precisely b/c it only is given only syntactical content and lacks any semantical content. What the actor in the video does is turn it on its head (Searle's argument), and he supposes that the entity in the room is puzzling over and reflecting on its task. A computer does not do that: it simply follows a set of instructions that cannot in themselves have any meaning. It cannot therefore ever achieve understanding. That is the point of the Chinese Room thought experiment.

[riteshsharma]

at 1:23 where the reply or answer came from, is there any particular answers already provided to the AI for the particular questions by expert system?