I know about the Chinese Room. The pivotal difference is that the intelligence is performing a mechanical task and none of its intelligence is inserted into the inputs. No synthesis is performed.

In the API example, it's literally people answering the queries with the answer they want. They're using their intelligence to synthesize the responses.

Props to him for predicting the future, but that's not an argument against LLMs having understanding. The Chinese Room has been invented and disproves his argument.