Can machines ever truly understand language—or are they just really good at following instructions? In this episode, we unpack John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, one of the most famous challenges to artificial intelligence. Imagine sitting in a room with no knowledge of Chinese but being able to respond perfectly to Chinese messages using a set of instructions. Does that mean you understand Chinese? We’ll explore what this means for AI, consciousness, and whether machines can ever think like humans.

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