[kayimbo]

is it? It seemed to me like author assumes AI decision making will be roughly equivalent to biological decision making, just faster. I thought one of the Chinese room arguments is that biological decisions will always be "different" than AI ones.

Also it seemed like the author assumes great technological advances in AIs, but not in biology. If we're gonna dream shit up why not dream that brains in the future will be 10,000 times as dense and computers won't be able to keep up except as tools.

[gwern]

The point of the Chinese room argument is that while the room receives and emits Chinese just like any Chinaman, it isn't conscious. As the WP article makes clear, the assumption is that the Chinese room is just as competent at emitting Chinese:

"Suppose, says Searle, that this computer performs its task so convincingly that it comfortably passes the Turing test: it convinces a human Chinese speaker that the program is itself a live Chinese speaker. To all of the questions that the person asks, it makes appropriate responses, such that any Chinese speaker would be convinced that they are talking to another Chinese-speaking human being."

> If we're gonna dream shit up why not dream that brains in the future will be 10,000 times as dense

Because... that is not a thing which is happening. And deep learning and AI progress are things that are happening. (Quite aside from the many issues with your proposal, like a brain 10kx as powerful due to 10kx density would probably break thermodynamic limits on computation and of course cook itself to death within seconds.)

[kayimbo]

whats not a thing thats actually happening? Drugs and other procedures that increase synaptic/neural density are indeed happening.

Like i mentioned, i don't know all the AI terminology but isn't there an unresolved argument that ai architecture in the short run can't mimic biological decision making, and so the decisions will always be different/ tasks for which tool AI will be better to help the biological decision making processes?

[kobeya]

No, the Chinese room takes as an assumption that the input and output of the room is the same as someone who "actually understands" Chinese. In other words, it assumes that biological decisions will always be the same as the AI's decision.