The "Dark Room" Argument
Critics of AI often argue, "The machine doesn't understand 'apple'; it just has a statistical representation of the word." Anti-Representationalism asks: "What do YOU have?" You don't have a magical apple in your head; you have a set of coping strategies (eating, buying, naming) triggered by the stimulus. If the AI possesses effective coping strategies (linguistic competence), demanding a magical "inner picture" is a category error.
Field Notes & Ephemera
Field Note: We are not mirrors polishing ourselves to reflect the world. We are organisms coping with the world. The AI is a new way of coping.