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Chinese Room refutes strong AI not weak AI

The Chinese Room argument refutes strong AI by showing that running a program is not enough to generate any real understanding or intentionality. But it doesn't refute weak AI, which simply uses computers as tools to study the mind.

John Searle 1980a, 1980b, 1990b.

Strong AI: The position that an appropriately programmed computer really is a mind. Computers can possess mental states just by virtue of formal symbol manipulations.

Weak AI: The position that computers are a useful tool in psychology. They help researchers test andn evaluate theories about how the mind works.

From Searle's perspective, Weak AI is an appropriate research program; strong AI is not.
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The Chinese Room Argument [4]
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Chinese Room refutes strong AI not weak AI
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Searle attacks a straw man
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John Searle
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The Syntax-Semantics Barrier
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Only minds are intrinsically intentional
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Understanding arises from right causal powers
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Can't process symbols predicationally or oppositionally
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The Combination Reply
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The Systems Reply
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Robot reply: Robots can think
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The Brain Simulator Reply
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The Many Mansions Reply
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The Pseudorealisation Fallacy
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Searle's Chinese Room is trapped in a dilemma
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Chinese Room more than a simulation
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Man in Chinese Room doesn't instantiate a progam
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Chinese-speaking too limited a counterexample
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The Chinese Room makes a modularity assumption
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Man in Room understands some Chinese questions
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The Chinese Room argument is circular
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There are questions the Chinese Room can't answer
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