> If his claim is correct, and 99% of people are NPCs incapable of any meaningful thinking, that makes the 1% that actually does all the thinking of human civilization very valuable.

That's like saying if 99% of birds don't have huge colorful tails that makes peacocks very valuable. In each case it may or may not be true but you are just correlating. (i.e. It's possible that intelligence just isn't as valuable as 'intelligent' people think it is)