Computer pioneer Alan Turing’s remarks in 1950 on the question, “Can machines think?” were misquoted, misinterpreted and morphed into the so-called “Turing Test”. The modern version says if you can’t tell the difference between communicating with a machine and a human, the machine is intelligent. What Turing actually said was that by the year 2000 people would be using words like “thinking” and “intelligent” to describe computers, because interacting with them would be so similar to interacting with people. Computer scientists do not sit down and say alrighty, let’s put this new software to the Turing Test - by Grabthar’s Hammer, it passed! We’ve achieved Artificial Intelligence!
It was invalid when he originally proposed it because it assumes a unique mystical ability for the atoms that make up our brains. For Searle the atoms in our brain have a quality that cannot be duplicated by other atoms simply because they aren’t in what he recognizes as a human being.
It’s why he claims the machine translation system system is incapable of understanding because the claim assumes it is possible.
It’s self contradictory. He won’t consider it possible because it hasn’t been shown to be possible.