I read the article, "Watson Doesn't Know It Won On Jeopardy!", by Professor John Searle for the University of California, Berkeley. Searle's extrapolated on the idea that Watson, an IBM computer designed to think and answer, was in fact not thinking at all. His focus is on what and how a computer can understand.
He does congratulate IBM on its success and for Watson's "huge increase in computational power and ingenious program " (215). But that is where most of the praise ends. It is his belief that the operations of Watson or any computer should never be compared to thinking or understanding akin to that involved in the human brain. Citing an argument he raised in the 1980's, he compares the "thinking " that IBM claims Watson does to that of a man in a room processing Chinese symbols to answer questions with no recognition of what the symbols mean or say. While he admits the speed in which Watson can process that task is impressive, he believes Watson doesn't have "anything I don't have " (215). So no matter how well a computer works, in his eyes, it just won't ever be really thinking or understanding.
His points are well presented and easy to understand. I can follow his train of thought and feel most would be hard pressed to disagree with him on his comparison of a computer and the human brain when it comes to the final output. Prof. Searle certainly makes a strong case for his objection of a thinking computer. But I find his article misses a bit as it may go too far in trying to prove his point. No one is trying to say that Watson could sit up and have a conversation with you about the weather and express emotion about a rainy day. But it can certainly process the information to know how it should reply and what it should do. In the end, that is pretty much what the human brain does on a daily basis. Some better than others. Some not as fast. Some incredibly fast.
I get that Watson processing data, no matter how fast or correct, does not mean it has gained "consciousness, understanding and all the rest of it " (216) like a brain.
