You are arguing that background checks should be a requirement in order to have access to certain protected resources. While this is a fair argument, the counterargument is that most people in this particular software business shouldn't have access to user data/protected branches anyway. If someone needs elevated access, they would likely already have a significant pedigree at the company, and a background check may not add much value. In reality, most companies don't do background checks for security purposes; they do it to screen out candidates who aren't agreeable people, which raises ethical questions. I don't have an opinion on whether this is fair or unethical, but if security was the sole purpose, it would make more sense to background-check employees as a precondition to privileged access, not candidates as a precondition to employment.
If we are to consider the definition of "better off" in strictly financial terms, the answer is clear. However, if we take into account a definition of "better off" that includes factors such as life satisfaction, I don't have the data to answer.
Suppose I join the workforce at 26, and earn an average of 65k per year while in the <30 cohort, while my friend joins at 19 and earns an average of 55k per year, in this statistic I'll seem better off even though my friend earned 345k more.
How so? The page you link offers three definitions[1], and all of them require an infinite tape.
You could argue that a stack is missing in my simplified model of the human brain, which would be correct. I used the simple model in allusion to the Chinese room thought experiment which doesn't require anything more than a dictionary.
The human brain isn't Turing-complete as that would require infinite memory. I'm not saying that GPT-3 is even close, but it is in the same category. I tried playing chess against it. According to chess.com, move 10 was its first mistake, move 16 was its first blunder, and past move 20 it tried to make illegal moves. Try playing chess without a chessboard and not making an illegal move. It is difficult. Clearly it does understand chess enough not to make illegal moves as long as its working memory allows it to remember the game state.
Imagine for a second a model of the human brain that consists of three parts. 1) a vector of trillion inputs, 2) a black box, and 3) a vector of trillion outputs. At this level of abstraction, the human brain "pattern matches and replicates" just the same, except it is better at it.
Have you tried reading the manual[1]? I read it cover to cover once and it is invaluable because it gives you the ability to understand and describe what you're trying to achieve. The solution is always one search away if you know how to ask.