The levels of conscious involvement dilemma
Once the man internalizes the system, the Chinese Room argument fails regardless of what level of involvement we imagine the man to have with it.
Either, the man unconscioulsy follows the rules in the rule book, in which case strong AI would not expect the man to understand Chinese any more than it would expect any other element of the Chinese speaking system to understand Chinese.
Or, the man conscioulsy follows the rules in the rule book, in which case as far as we know the man may understand Chinese afterall.
In either case, the predictions of strong AI are not refuted.
John Fisher, 1988.