Functionalism attempts to overcome some of the problems with identity theory and behaviourism to forge them into a new, materialist view of the mind. In doing this it uses a computer model which describes the mind as a “multiply realisable” total functional system. In other words, it is like the calculations and rules that make up a software program that can be run on any machine. In this way, it both lends itself to arguments for AI (Artificial Intelligence) and provokes counter-arguments from those opposed to the possibility of AI (and therefore using the computer model as a description of the mind).