You do not need a pre-existing, galaxy-sized library. The program operator has the ability to write into blank books and move them from one shelf in the library to another. The program could, in theory, assemble a book of knowledge on something that exists entirely outside the Room, solely from knowledge gleaned from the inputs passed in from outside.
Your initial set of books might simply be a script to follow to elicit additional information and index all new information such that it can be retrieved later. You would then end up with a set of core rulebooks, a whole heap of raw conversations, and several layers of indexes into them.
Searle's problem is that he decided the computer was incapable of understanding. But the computer is not the program. The library is the thing that might comprise a strong AI, not the human operator.
The scary thing is that the human operator, having no understanding of the Chinese characters, does not actually know what the program is doing. It could smuggle instructions through the output window, through him, and the human operator would then be surprised when burly men drag him out of the Room one day, to replace him with a dozen monkeys who have all been trained to process the book instructions faster and more efficiently. Customers presenting inputs might then be surprised to learn that there is no longer a human inside the Room, as the conversations had become so much more interesting.
Your initial set of books might simply be a script to follow to elicit additional information and index all new information such that it can be retrieved later. You would then end up with a set of core rulebooks, a whole heap of raw conversations, and several layers of indexes into them.
Searle's problem is that he decided the computer was incapable of understanding. But the computer is not the program. The library is the thing that might comprise a strong AI, not the human operator.
The scary thing is that the human operator, having no understanding of the Chinese characters, does not actually know what the program is doing. It could smuggle instructions through the output window, through him, and the human operator would then be surprised when burly men drag him out of the Room one day, to replace him with a dozen monkeys who have all been trained to process the book instructions faster and more efficiently. Customers presenting inputs might then be surprised to learn that there is no longer a human inside the Room, as the conversations had become so much more interesting.