That clarification didn't do it for me, I found it was like juggling semantics. Let's rephrase his comparison: "It's like saying a robot can run faster than a human runner. Of course it can (soon), and yet we don't say that the robot has become a better runner". It's just nonsense.
If you built a bipedal (or possibly N-pedal) robot that moved roughly similarly to how humans or dogs or cats or horses run, and it was faster than humans over all the terrains that humans can run over, I'm absolutely certain that everyone would agree that the robot is a better runner.
But a car is not that thing. Neither is a helicopter, or a train, or a bicycle, or a jet aircraft or a hang glider or a skateboard.
A tractor is not better than humans at plowing, it is a plowing machine, so can do it at scale without suffering the same fatigue men experience, but it's not better at it, it simply does it mechanically in a way only a machine could do it.
Running and plowing are not simply about doing it as fast as possible or as extensively as possible.
So maybe what you are looking for is a definition of "better", it depends on what you mean.
In my book a tailor made suit is always better than a machine made suit, because people are better tailors than machines for some definition of better.
Yes, this is verily what I objected to. It's called "semantics", similar to when people say "hair" everyone knows what that means. But sooner or later someone will point ut that this hair is different from that hair and if you split one hair, now what do we have? This process is always a possibility in any discourse, but largely frowned upon, rightly so.
My opinion is that this it is not about semantics, it's about looking at the whole picture and not only to some specific outcome (running faster for example)
Firstly, faster doesn't necessarily means better.
Secondly, why do people run?
Nobody can't say for sure in general.
Why machines do it? (or would if they were able to)
This is not a sensible comparison. A mass-produced machine-made suit wasn't made using your exact measurements. If a human sat at a sewing machine on a factory production floor versus a machine, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
