I posted a link to the original context.

I don't know whether you are saying that I have taken it out of context or a more general statement of how other people have interpreted the quote.

To me it is quite clear -- the question of whether machines can reason is just as meaningful as the question as to whether submarines can swim, which is to say not at all meaningful. Can a submarine accomplish by other means what a fish accomplishes by swimming? If so, then what are we talking about?

Can an LLM accomplish by other means what a human accomplishes by "reasoning"? If so, then what are we talking about?

Of course it's meaningful! It would be highly meaningful if submarines could actually swim. And we are building submersible bots that swim, they just tend to be small and made of biological matter.

The problem with calling what AI does "reasoning" is both that there may be alternate paths to artificial reasoning we may be closing off by declaring victory, and the simple fact that you shouldn't call a thing something else, to avoid confusion.

Whatever AI is doing needs to be studied. Why muddy that study by pretending AI is your thinking buddy?