No, the Singularity isn't coming – machine learning and common sense

I agree with this. Even today when we just recently saw what applied statistics can do (gpt, AlphaFold, AlphaGo,...), I think the problem fits the application nicely and we can go beyond what would be possible by "manual" research.

Comparably, conventionally developing an AI for blackjack would almost be trivial. (sorry for the blackjack fans, and yes, the AI might still help you with body language)

But that is still more statistics than intelligence. In fact a lot of that is required to reduce a strategy an AI has developed into general rules that isn't dependent on training data or derived information anymore.