strong AI
In plain wordsOriginally, the claim that a computer running the right program would literally have a mind and understand, not just imitate understanding. Today it often simply means AI as capable as humans across the board.
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Philosophy
The thesis, named and attacked by John Searle, that a computer running the right program would not be simulating a mind but would actually have one, with real understanding and other mental states — in Searle's words, 'the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind'. On this view the program itself, not merely a model built with it, would explain cognition. Searle contrasted it with weak AI, the view that computers are useful tools for modeling and studying the mind, which he accepted. His Chinese roomChinese room, n.: A thought experiment: a person who knows no Chinese follows a rulebook to answer Chinese messages so well that outsiders think they understand. If the person doesn't understand, does a computer running a program? argument was aimed at strong AI in this sense, which is a claim about understanding and mentality, not about how capable a system is.
Searle's target was strong AI, not the claim that computers are useful models of thought.
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Capabilities
AI with general intelligence matching or exceeding human intelligence across most domains, a common synonym for artificial general intelligenceartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive. and the opposite of narrow AInarrow AI, n.: AI built to do one specific job, or a small set of related jobs, such as playing chess or spotting spam, without being able to turn its skill to unrelated problems.. In this usage a system could count as strong AI even if it had no mind or understanding in Searle's sense.
Origin
Introduced by John Searle, together with its contrast 'weak AI', in 'Minds, Brains, and Programs' (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1980). From the 1990s futurists such as Ray Kurzweil used 'strong AI' for human-level general intelligence, the meaning now usual in popular writing.
Usage note
Because the senses are easily conflated, careful writers use 'artificial general intelligence' for the capability sense and keep 'strong AI' for Searle's thesis. Searle's 'weak AI' (computers as tools for studying minds) is likewise not the same as narrow AInarrow AI, n.: AI built to do one specific job, or a small set of related jobs, such as playing chess or spotting spam, without being able to turn its skill to unrelated problems., though the two are often merged.
Related
- Chinese roomChinese room, n.: A thought experiment: a person who knows no Chinese follows a rulebook to answer Chinese messages so well that outsiders think they understand. If the person doesn't understand, does a computer running a program?
- artificial general intelligenceartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive.
- narrow AInarrow AI, n.: AI built to do one specific job, or a small set of related jobs, such as playing chess or spotting spam, without being able to turn its skill to unrelated problems.
- biological naturalismbiological naturalism, n.: John Searle's view that consciousness is a real biological product of brains, as digestion is of stomachs, so running a computer program would not by itself create a mind.
- computational theory of mindcomputational theory of mind, n.: The idea that thinking is a kind of computation: the mind processes information by following rules, much as a computer runs a program, and the brain is the machine doing it.
- machine understandingmachine understanding, n.: Whether, and in what sense, an AI system grasps what words, situations or problems mean — rather than just producing answers that look as though it does.
- narrow AInarrow AI, n.: AI built to do one specific job, or a small set of related jobs, such as playing chess or spotting spam, without being able to turn its skill to unrelated problems.
Sources
- Searle, J. R. (1980). Minds, Brains, and Programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(3), 417–457.
Mentioned in
artificial general intelligenceartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive., Chinese roomChinese room, n.: A thought experiment: a person who knows no Chinese follows a rulebook to answer Chinese messages so well that outsiders think they understand. If the person doesn't understand, does a computer running a program?, John SearleJohn Searle, prop. n.: An American philosopher who devised the Chinese room argument, which holds that a computer running a program can manipulate symbols without understanding anything., narrow AInarrow AI, n.: AI built to do one specific job, or a small set of related jobs, such as playing chess or spotting spam, without being able to turn its skill to unrelated problems., philosophy of artificial intelligencephilosophy of artificial intelligence, n.: The branch of philosophy that asks what AI is and could be: whether machines can think, understand or be conscious, what intelligence is, and what we owe to and should expect from intelligent machines., biological naturalismbiological naturalism, n.: John Searle's view that consciousness is a real biological product of brains, as digestion is of stomachs, so running a computer program would not by itself create a mind., Lucas–Penrose argumentLucas–Penrose argument, n.: An argument that human minds cannot be computers because, using a famous result in logic, people can see that certain statements are true that no fixed computer program could prove., Roger PenroseRoger Penrose, prop. n.: A British mathematical physicist and Nobel laureate who argues that human understanding is not computational, so that no computer, however powerful, could truly think like a mathematician.