> I’ll grant there is a gap there….. but it actually makes the whole thing weaker than I was granting…

What you described as the Chinese room argument is not the commonly accepted Chinese room “argument”. Your version was about “intelligence” the accepted version is about “conscious” / “understanding” / “mind” regardless how intelligent the machine is.

Whether the commonly accepted Chinese room argument is “weaker“ is difficult to judge due to the difference between them. I expect to judge whether a machine has “conscious” / “understanding” / “mind” will be harder than judging whether that machine is intelligent.

To judge intelligence there are objective tests. Are there objective tests to judge “consciousness” / “understanding” / “mind”? I suspect not.

> cause I don’t give a shit about whether an AI system is “conscious” or “understanding” or a “mind”, those are BS meaningless mystical terms.

For you they are “meaningless mystical terms”. For many others these are important aspects that they believe make humans “human”. They care about these things because these things determine how mechanical minds are viewed and treated by society.

When you construct an LLM today you are free to delete it. When you create a child however you are not free to “delete it”. If ever human minds are judged to be equaivalent to machine minds will machine minds come to be treated like human minds?

Will instead human minds come to be treated like machine minds which we are free to do with as we please (enslave / delete / ...)? When human minds come to be treated like machines will it make sense to care whether they suffer? To a machine what is suffering? Is your car “suffering” when check engine light is on? It is but a “status light” is it not?

> What I care about is the practical demonstration of intelligence; what measurable intelligence does a system exhibit. I’ll let priests and philosophers debate about whether its “really a mind” and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while I use the AI to do fun or useful stuff.

I understand your attitude since I share it.