Isn't this basically an argument over John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment?
It supposes that there is a program that gives a computer the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program is given to someone who speaks only English to execute the instructions of the program by hand, then in theory, the English speaker would also be able to carry on a conversation in written Chinese. However, the English speaker would not be able to understand the conversation. Similarly, Searle concludes, a computer executing the program would not understand the conversation either.
I'm of the opinion that the room has an understanding entity inside of it, in talking about infinitely-sized books with an infinitely-sized index allowing any mechanical process to map an input to a correct output, you've hypothesized something complicated enough that it should be said to be an entity capable of understanding/meaning.
The problem with Searle's assertion is that he is making a distinction between the computer and the program. We, as human beings, are not our computers, we are our programs.
> Isn't this basically an argument over John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment?
No, this debate is completely and utterly different from Searle's Chinese Room argument! Searle's argument is a philosophical one for the assertion that a computer could never be a person. He concludes that this is true even if we were to eventually believe that we completely understand intelligence in the manner than Chomsky is lobbying for, and then fully implement that understanding in a computer.
For Searle, no amount of understanding of intelligence in any form will ever let us make an intelligent computer. For Searle, intelligent beings must be made out of flesh and bone. Or at least not out of anything digital and computer-like.
Is a robot capable of running? Let's say you had one, then take his legs and give them to an amputee. The amputee can operate the legs by pressing a button. However, pressing a button is not running. Similarly, the robot would not really be running either.
No True Scotsman here, which I'm assuming that you're implying exists in Searle's argument. But that puts you in a position of saying that the English speaking operator of the Chinese room understands Chinese because he responds in a convincing way to Chinese speakers, which is pretty explicitly false.
It also relies on the concept of "running" being monolithic instead of constructed. Under a part of most people's concepts of running lie things that a running robot does, other parts of the concept for some people involve particular types of clothing, and/or nipple chafe cream. I would think that most people would think of what the amputee does with the robot legs as running, yet they wouldn't want him in the Olympics.
Is Searle's room, or the assemblage of Searle's room and its operator, intelligent? Whether you can answer that question easily depends on which part of the concept of intelligence is important to you in that context. Is the designer and implementor of Searle's room intelligent? Unambiguously. Are the assemblage and the designer intelligent in exactly the same way?
It supposes that there is a program that gives a computer the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program is given to someone who speaks only English to execute the instructions of the program by hand, then in theory, the English speaker would also be able to carry on a conversation in written Chinese. However, the English speaker would not be able to understand the conversation. Similarly, Searle concludes, a computer executing the program would not understand the conversation either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room