Comment by hnfong

There are already people dealing with AI intelligence scientifically. That's what benchmarks do.

It's the "it's just a stochastic parrot!" camp that's doing the theological work. (and maybe also those in the Singularity camp...)

That said, I do think there's value in having people understand what "Understanding" means, which is kinda a theological (philosophical :D) question. IMHO, in every-day language there's a functional part (that can be tested with benchmarks), and there's a subjective part (i.e. what does it feel like to understand something?). Most people without the appropriate training simply mix up these two things, and together with whatever insecurities they have with AI taking over the world (which IMHO is inevitable to some extent), they just express their strong opinions about it online...