"there is a second tacit premise at work here: that performing the room's task required something to understand the language. LLMs arguably suggest that the task could be performed without anything resembling a human's understanding of language."
Yeah. I used to assume that. But it's much less obvious now. Or just false or something.
It's actually kind of spooky how well Searle did capture/foreshadow something about LLMs decades ago. No part of the system seems to understand much of anything.
My theory is that Searle came up with the CR while complaining to his wife (for the hundredth time) about bright undergrads who didn't actually understand anything. She finally said "Hey, you should write that down!" Really she just meant "holy moly, stop telling it to me!" But he misunderstood her, and the rest is history.
Yeah. I used to assume that. But it's much less obvious now. Or just false or something.
It's actually kind of spooky how well Searle did capture/foreshadow something about LLMs decades ago. No part of the system seems to understand much of anything.
My theory is that Searle came up with the CR while complaining to his wife (for the hundredth time) about bright undergrads who didn't actually understand anything. She finally said "Hey, you should write that down!" Really she just meant "holy moly, stop telling it to me!" But he misunderstood her, and the rest is history.