Editing Openai/6910f719-b034-8006-930d-0d5190a7c617 (section)

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* The CRA remains a canonical thought experiment in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science: the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry still treats it as “one of the most widely discussed philosophical arguments in cognitive science.” Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>
* Articles such as “What a Mysterious Chinese Room Can Tell Us About Consciousness” note that when we confront modern AI chatbots and generative systems, the CRA continues to influence how we think about “understanding”, “consciousness”, “intentionality”. Psychology Today<ref>{{cite web|title=Psychology Today|url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/consciousness-and-beyond/202308/what-a-mysterious-chinese-room-can-tell-us-about-consciousness|publisher=Psychology Today|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>

===== - A 2024 paper by Emma Borg, LLMs, Turing tests and Chinese rooms: the prospects for meaning in large language models, asks precisely whether the CRA can be extended or must be reinterpreted when considering LLMs. PhilPapers<ref>{{cite web|title=PhilPapers|url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BORLTT-2|publisher=philpapers.org|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref> =====
* A preprint by Johannes Brinz, The Flashcard Sorter — Applicability of the Chinese Room Argument to Large Language Models (LLMs)?, argues that although LLMs differ from the “Good Old‑Fashioned AI” (GOFAI) the CRA targeted, the core conclusion (that symbol‑manipulation isn’t sufficient for “understanding”) still holds. PhilArchive<ref>{{cite web|title=PhilArchive|url=https://philarchive.org/rec/BRITFS-2|publisher=philarchive.org|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>
* A 2025 Forbes article by Gabriel A. Silva, ‘Can AI understand... Says no — but is it right?’ holds the CRA remains relevant given the advanced language capabilities of current systems, even if weakened. Forbes<ref>{{cite web|title=Forbes|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielasilva/2025/04/23/can-ai-understand-the-chinese-room-argument-says-no-but-is-it-right/|publisher=forbes.com|date=2025-04-23|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>

===== - Architecture differences: Modern neural nets/LLMs are not the kind of “rulebook + human” symbol‑manipulator that Searle originally posited. Artificial Intelligence Stack Exchange<ref>{{cite web|title=Artificial Intelligence Stack Exchange|url=https://ai.stackexchange.com/questions/39293/is-the-chinese-room-an-explanation-of-how-chatgpt-works|publisher=Artificial Intelligence Stack Exchange|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref> =====
* Meaning & semantics: A big question is whether LLMs generate responses from pattern correlation only (syntax) or whether that abstracts into semantics (meaning/understanding). Searle’s punch was: syntax cannot yield semantics. Recent work asks whether semantic‑emergence is possible in LLMs. PhilPapers<ref>{{cite web|title=PhilPapers|url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BORLTT-2|publisher=philpapers.org|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>
* Novel inputs/adaptation etc.: Some argue that because LLMs can generalize/learn from vast corpora (even if not in the sense of human “experience”), they escape at least some of the static‑system critique of CRA. Others say they still don’t genuinely “understand”. Analytics Vidhya<ref>{{cite web|title=Analytics Vidhya|url=https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2023/12/exploring-the-intricacies-of-the-chinese-room-experiment-in-ai/|publisher=Analytics Vidhya|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>
* Embodiment, world‐interaction, experience: Many of the updates to CRA‐debate emphasise that computers or LLMs don’t have bodies, sensory grounding, real world causal interaction in the way humans do. So the question isn’t only “symbol manipulation” but also “grounding”. Philosophical Investigations<ref>{{cite web|title=Philosophical Investigations|url=https://www.philosophical-investigations.org/2023/04/the-chinese-room-experiment-and-todays.html|publisher=Philosophical Investigations|access-date=2025-11-10}}</ref>