> surely you can't blame the OP for writing this after a few months ChatGPT

Bad takes are bad takes. The author was perplexed by the "many people" convinced that models are intelligent and is argued against opinions/arguments he's been exposed to. Called proposed use-cases "borderline fraudulent pseudoscience."

He also published a second edition of "The Intelligence Illusion" in Sep 2025, so seemingly still stands by (some variant of) this belief.

It's an interesting reminder of how much general discourse has shifted since 2023 (I haven't heard of stochastic parrots in months!) but being wrong early doesn't change that.