Are you familiar with Searle's work[1] on the subject? It's fun how topical it is here. Anyhow maybe the medium doesn't matter, but the burden of proof for that claim is on you, because it's contrary to experience, intuition, and thought experiment.
Really out-of-ignorance: Is 'proof' the right word here? A more substantial philosophical counter-argument may be needed, but proof sounds weird in these "metaphysical" (for now) discussions.
You raise a valid point. Proof is an overloaded term with differing meanings in metaphysics, math, and law. However in all three cases it's obviously different attempts to grasp at the same ultimate thing: truth.
My take on Searle is that he was a hack. It's possible I judge too harshly, that _I_ am a hack (the likeliest, tbh) or that I and his writing have some fundamental life outlooks different.
Regardless, I think the Chinese room experiment is bunk and proves nothing. And I fail to gather where the medium of computation steps in the Chinese room experiment. The "computer" might as well be a bunch of neurons in a petry dish.
I guess the proof will be in the pudding when we develop superhumanly intelligent AI.
> I guess the proof will be in the pudding when we develop superhumanly intelligent AI.
I'm not sure that's the case. The universe itself is already capable of superhuman intelligence. There's nobody alive that can predict how wind will flow over an airfoil better than a wind tunnel.
The actual proof will be in the pudding if we develop superhumanly creative AI.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/