He is correct. AI looks smart, sometimes, because we have gotten used to measuring eloquence as a proxy for intelligence in humans. Doesn't work for AI. Doesn't work for humans, either, but it especially doesn't work for AI. AI has no theory of mind, no executive function, and no world-object model. This means it isn't anything that we would call "smart". The good news, however, is that AI, despite not being smart, brings more smart to the world, because AI is a force multiplier on smart. AI does, and will, make smart people effectively smarter, because they figure out what it can and can't do, and use it effectively. AI will just confuse and deceive dumb people, because they will see that it talks like a smart person, expect it to be a smart person, and then assign it responsibility for decisions it cannot make, and does not understand that it cannot make. There are many technologies like this now, such as 3d printing, CNC machining, and the internet itself. And more are coming. Which means the future is elitist again. Except this time we don't have use silly rubrics like who your great-great-grandfather was, whose DNA you share 6.25% of. We can just let people sort themselves by how well they use the tools.

If you give problems the wrong names, you can't understand them. If you can't understand problems, you can't fix them. There are almost no homeless people in America. There are only feral humans. A homeless person is someone whose distinguishing feature is not having a home. I was homeless once, for a day, when the lease on one apartment expired before the next one was cleaned, repaired, and ready. I parked a moving van full of my worldly possessions at my university, and slept on a couch in the student commons. That's "homeless". "Feral" is when a human cannot live within society, or comply with the basic expectations required for membership. Yes, they do not have homes. But this is not their distinguishing feature. Because they also don't have jobs, sanity, sobriety, manners, morals, or hygiene. Which is why they do not have homes. If you give them a house, because you think they are "homeless" rather than "feral", then they will simply repeat, within that structure, the same feral behavior. And soon that structure will be uninhabitable. Which, for certain people, is the whole point. A man whose job is to sell 3d printed houses isn't trying to fix the feral-human problem. He's trying to sell 3d printed houses. And it's one hell of a lot easier to sell them to bureaucrats who aren't spending their own personal money. It doesn't matter if 3d printed houses suck to live in. It doesn't matter if the feral humans trash them. Nobody in this equation cares about the feral humans, even the feral humans themselves. And nobody in this equation cares about the taxpayers. If the feral humans are still feral, then the 3d house grifters can sell more gimmick houses, and the bureaucrats can spend more of someone else's money. If a violent political upheaval becomes necessary, this will be very unpleasant for everyone involved, but at least afterwards, we will all be able to use the feral humans, bureaucrats, and grifters to fertilize the garden of new homes. Which will be made out of bricks.

Okay, time to explain the Imperial system, the metric system, and why attempts to replace either with the other are all retarded. They have two different purposes. The metric system is designed around precise measurement of objects. Its goal is to make engineering and scientific calculations simple. The Imperial system is designed around humans. Its goal is to make calculation unnecessary. 100 degrees is really hot. 0 degrees is really cold. Anything that starts with a 5 is cool, anything that starts with an 8 is warm. No computation. 6 feet is tall, 5 feet is short. 100 pounds is light, 200 pounds is substantial, 300 pounds is heavy. A 1000 square foot house is small, a 2000 square foot house is medium, a 3000 square foot house is large. 1 mile is a short walk, 2 miles is a medium walk, after that it takes a while. 1 acre of land is a homestead, 10 acres is an estate, 100 acres and up is a ranch or a farm. Do you see now why it is so strange and awkward to convert from miles to feet? It's because converting from miles to feet is not something you're supposed to do in the first place. Yes, they are both measures of length, so they are technically convertible, and yes, on rare occasions, you might need to do that. But feet are for measuring humans, and things built around humans, like doorways, and mattresses. Miles are for measuring travel distance. You wouldn't measure the distance between Seattle and Portland in feet for the same reason you wouldn't measure the distance between Tokyo and Osaka in mattress-lengths. It would be silly. This is why Americans so fiercely resistant to any notion of "conversion" to the metric system. Because it makes no sense. We already use the metric system for what it's good for, which is doing physics and chemistry and whatnot. But converting everyday measurements to the metric system would be less useful, generally inconvenient, and serve no purpose other than to make petty government bureaucrats happy that everything is now tidy, orderly, and worse, three qualities that bureaucrats love. I thought about this carefully when I wrote my first science fiction novel. In the world of the 22nd century, extraterrestrial settlers ("Orbitals") use three systems of measurement. They measure themselves in feet, inches, and pounds. They measure the spacecraft and habitats they build in meters and centimeters, grams and kilograms. And they measure space travel distances in light-seconds and light-minutes. Each system has its own natural scale. The sole exception to this is when Marcus doses himself with drugs for high-g resistance, Miranda objects that he has taken too much, and Marcus responds by stating his mass... in kilograms. Why? Because they're talking about drug doses, a engineering measurement. Drugs are dosed in milligrams per kilogram. So, yes, the Imperial system makes perfect sense when you understand what it's for, and no, we ain't changing. And, as a general rule, when an entire civilization of smart people does something for centuries, and it makes no sense to you, they're probably not being silly. It's more likely there's something you don't know.