> So when this room is asked, "pass me the pen" and it replies "i cannot pass the pen" (or whatever it replies) -- it should be obvious that the person in the room, or any function of their activity, has never acquired any reference to "the pen"

And yet Searle seems to pass the buck here to a book that actually "responds", not to the person in the room. I get it: the person is out of the loop.

But how does one explain the book that can answer so convincingly? That would appear to be where the "AI" resides.