[narag]

I can't think of anything that could speak on this level, and yet be completely and obviously (if you give it like, an hour of back and forth conversation) devoid of intelligence or thinking.

It's not devoid of intelligence or thinking. You're just using "what I'm doing right now" as the definition of intelligence and thinking. It isn't alive so it can't be the same. You are noticing that its intelligence is not centralized in the same way as your own mind.

But that's not the same as saying it's dumb. Try an operational definition that involves language and avoid vague criteria that try to judge internal states. Your dog might understand some words, associate them to the current situation and react, but can't understand a phrase.

These things can analyze the syntax of a phrase, can follow complex instructions, can do what you tell them to do. How is that not "understanding"?

If that isn't intelligence for you, I don't know what else to say.