> If someone had explained to them back then that such a future machine would be able to play expert-level chess by mere number crunching of a huge list of moves, and that it wouldn't imply any other thinking facultu, they wouldn't consider that to be AGI.

I'd argue the problem isn't how the machine does it, but the fact that you've explained how the machine does it. If you explained exactly how a brain worked, people would say "that's not intelligence, that's a just ion circuity."

(Copying from another post): there are neurons in your eye that see something and send signals out laterally so when they (after a specific time-delay) meet another neuron that is currently seeing the thing, they combine to trigger a signal that can be directly interpreted as movement in a specific direction at a specific arc-speed.

Explain each process in the brain like that and it loses its magic. It actually becomes very similar to the debate between free will and meat robots.