There is no double standard and the matter is not philosophical. We know humans to be able to understand language- we do not need to prove it in any way, including by examining our representation of meaning in language.

We don't know that statistical language models have an understanding of language, it's a very strong assumption to make that they do, and it must be justified with equally strong evidence. Their internal structure is available for inspection, therefore if they are capable of understanding language this understanding should have a concrete reprsentation that we can identify. If we can't, then they don't have anything like "understanding".

>> Why should I trust you and hold you to a different standard than I would any other model?

Assuming that I'm not a model is a reasonable assumption with a very high probability of being true and the simplest explanation for my participation in this thread.