Intentionality Flashcards
: What is intentionality?
Intentionality is the aptitude of mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for things, properties, and states of affairs. It is the “aboutness” of thoughts, beliefs, or desires.
How does intentionality relate to language?
Language conveys the content of mental states. Words, symbols, or drawings represent the speaker’s thoughts and have intentionality because they are about something.
Example of intentionality in language?
Saying, “The cat is on the mat,” expresses a thought about a specific situation involving a cat and a mat.
Q: What is Searle’s thesis about AI?
A: Searle argues that:
AI systems do not understand what they are doing.
The computations AI systems implement are not sufficient to explain human understanding.
Q: What is the distinction between Weak AI and Strong AI?
A:
Weak AI: AI is a tool to assist humans in cognitive tasks but does not have cognitive states.
Strong AI: AI systems are cognitive systems with cognitive states and can fully explain human cognition.
Q: What is the Chinese Room Thought Experiment?
A: It is a scenario where a person manipulates Chinese symbols using rules without understanding the language. This illustrates how AI systems process information syntactically without understanding semantics.
Q: What conclusions does Searle draw from the Chinese Room Thought Experiment?
A:
Computers manipulate symbols syntactically, without understanding semantics.
The Turing Test is inadequate for proving true understanding.
Human minds are not purely computational systems but arise from biological processes.
Q: What is a stochastic parrot?
A: A term describing how large language models generate plausible language strings without understanding meaning. “Stochastic” means randomly determined, and “parrot” refers to mimicking without comprehension.
Q: What is a cognitive state?
A: A mental condition involved in activities like thinking, understanding, learning, reasoning, or problem-solving.
Q: What is a cognitive system?
A: A system (biological or artificial) capable of performing cognitive processes like perception, reasoning, learning, memory, and decision-making.
Q: What does the symbol system hypothesis state?
A: Intelligence operates by manipulating symbols (abstract representations), and reasoning is performed in a domain-independent way on these symbols.
Q: What is the difference between syntax and semantics in Searle’s argument?
A:
Syntax: Rules for symbol manipulation (used by AI).
Semantics: Meaning or understanding of the symbols (lacking in AI systems).
Q: Why is intentionality essential for meaning in language?
A: Intentionality allows mental states and language to have content or refer to something in the world, enabling communication and understanding.
Q: What is the broader conclusion of Searle’s argument against Strong AI?
A: Human minds are not purely computational or information processing systems. Instead, cognition arises from biological processes, which AI can at best simulate.
Q: How does the Chinese Room thought experiment challenge Strong AI?
A: It shows that even if a system produces correct outputs and passes the Turing Test, it does not imply the system understands the tasks it performs.
