Yeah this is a good point. I've been taking the bearish position of HLI here but that doesn't mean I don't think HLI is impossible. I very much do think it is possible (I'm not sure there are many researchers who think it is impossible) but just how close we are. But we don't even have good definitions, so really this is just laymen being privy to expert arguments. I also think there's this naive belief that complex topics can be distilled to laymen terms while maintaining accuracy. That's definitely not true here, as even our "in-group" doesn't have a consensus. But that's cutting edge research for you.

In fairness to the parent, research doesn't work that why, but they're not conducting research.

"What are the remaining unknowns that would need to be solved to do X and why are they difficult?" is valid question to ask experts when trying to further your own understanding.