ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses some general questions raised by AI research and the possibility of machines that think. The first is: in what sense can a computer or a computer program be a model of the mind? The mathematical theory of computabiiity — a well-specified account of what computations, in the abstract sense of that term, are possible - provides a partial answer to this question. One view is that computers do not actually think, they merely simulate thought processes. Another is that, particularly when a computer interacts with the world in the way that people do, it can be correctly described as thinking. Searle argues against this view, which he calls strong AI. He suggests that we do not attribute mental predicates to people just because of the way they behave. We also take their biological make-up into account. His view has been described as 'protoplasm chauvinism'.
