Strong AI, according to the famous philosopher John Searle, is the claim that a computer can be a complete parallel and equal to a human mind and can not just simulate human intelligence, but also explain it. Even though I am a computer science student and would love the notion of something of the sort taking place, I feel that it is important to note which kind of intelligence a computer can simulate.
It isn’t my “intelligence” per say that gives me feelings, beliefs and ideas. Although, they do play a big role in our decision making process. Of course, strong AI cannot be termed completely human because it is devoid of all human characteristics except computational intelligence. One such characteristic is the presence of emotions and non-computational reactions to input or, in the human sense, perception and response to perception. It lacks intentionality, emotions, random responses, thoughts about topics etc. It is basically a machine that spits out the answer by accumulation of enough information and execution of enough algorithms, but it does not UNDERSTAND what it’s doing.
As they often say, a computer is only as intelligent as the programmer who programs it. Thus, although the computational ability of a computer may just be enough to give the answers a human would give, it still lacks the human touch. My view on this is that a computer can simulate a human’s computational intelligence, but cannot explain it and it lacks any other kind of “intelligence” per say.
So, I agree and disagree with Searle.. I agree that there isn’t an entirely human computer, but I do believe that it can simulate (not explain) human computational intelligence.
