What does it mean to understand a language? Today’s generative AI tools can produce remarkably convincing linguistic forms, but can these systems understand the language they produce?

In today’s episode, Mat and Phil explore John Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment and its argument that a system can produce appropriate linguistic forms without understanding their meaning. What can language learners gain from interacting with a machine that simulates language but does not understand it? Can learners engage in languaging—constructing meaning, knowledge, and experience through language and participating in human communities—by simply interacting with a chatbot?

Our hosts explore these questions while also considering the opportunities AI chatbots offer language learners, from conversation practice and individualized languag ...