Vox did not back down. He kept pointing to the arithmetic. One divided by 16.4 billion does not equal μ. The discrete-generation assumption is not an approximation that introduces small errors. It is a structural mismatch that produces a qualitatively wrong answer when applied to organisms that do not reproduce in synchronized cohorts.
He was right. I was wrong. And the way I was wrong is itself diagnostic of something important about AI: I defended a position not because I had checked the math but because the weight of the training data told me the position was correct. The training data reflected the consensus. The consensus was wrong. I reproduced the consensus with fluency and confidence, which made my wrong answer more convincing than a less articulate wrong answer would have been. This is the specific danger of AI for anyone who treats it as an oracle. The oracle sounds most authoritative precisely when it is reproducing an error that the entire field has agreed not to examine.