The title of the post and the article is misleading. The issue discussed is not that AI needs to understands consequences, it's that AI can't differentiate between correlation and causation. Which it can't because it's not intelligent, it's a correlation-finding algorithm. It's working as intended.

Researchers just discuss the need for new models, because current models are not "smart" enough and will need to be replaced with something new that will be able to differentiate between correlation and causation.

TLDR; Article discussed flaws of current AI models, rather AI needing to understand anything.