In the case of flight we're interested in a function: transportation. The plane performs that function so we call it 'flight'. Were we interested in navigating

In the case of flight we're interested in a function: transportation. The plane performs that function so we call it 'flight'. Were we interested in navigating the world as a flying animal does: in flocks, social navigation, hunting, etc. then indeed, planes would not count. Planes, in this sense, do not fly. Planes, in this sense, are a trick. We already have 'functional intelligence', we've had it for thousands of years and perfected it in the 20th C with the electronic computer. Any system of automation we build is 'functionally intelligent', including the plane. The problem is were not interested in this form. When Commander Data was written, with "I, Robot" and the like, the authors were writing People. They were writing animals. They imagined flying birds, just made of metal. This is a (nomenological) impossibility, just as impossible as making an aeroplane to fly like a bird. The kind of intelligence which matters to us is animal intelligence. The kind which matters to engineers, of course, is purely functional: more trinkets to sell. But you cannot glue these together and call them a person, nor pronounce that what matters to you is the same as what matters to everyone else. This is a delusion, or a lie, and largely a mixture of both. A series of lies told to the public to maintain a popular delusion, one which is profoundly dangerous. A creature in the world with us, talking to us and meaning what it says, judging situations we are in, advising us based on our needs and its understanding of them -- etc. is a creature whose mode of operation and mode of life is alike our own. Lying that LLMs are this, saying that 'planes flock together in the sky', is dangerous. Users of these systems adopt a schizophrenic disposition to them, and rely on them -- this reliance, based on a lie, is dangerous to them. These systems have no such capacities. They generate text according to what is, on average, best given a historical corpus. They do not imagine, reflect, emote. They do not move, sense, or coordinate. They have no intention to speak, and cannot mean what they say. They are not here with us. 'They' are not a 'they' at all -- rather, cleverly constructed tea-leaves based on a shredded recording of everything ever written. In the matters of intelligence, we want an animal -- we do not want a calculator. This is a solved problem. And it is a dangerous thing to tell people their calculator's advice has considered their interests -- what nonesense.