> It's not clear that equating organic, and synthetic thought will have any meaningful outcome at all,

I agree! I'm saying "If we equate them, we shortcut all the good stuff, e.g., understanding", because "it may be that this tech produces what we can, but that doesn't mean we are the same", which is good because it keeps us learning vs reducing all of "thinking" to just "Whatever latest chatgpt does". We have to continue to believe there is more to thinking, if only because it pushes us to make it better and to keep "us" as the benchmark.

Perhaps I chose the wrong words, but in essence what I'm saying is that giving up agency to a machine that was built to mimic our agency (by definition as a ML system) should be avoided at all costs.