Sean Carroll is more of a "just let the guest say what they want to" interviewer, so he doesn't grill him very hard. Despite that, I think it comes across pretty clearly in the interview that Wolfram doesn't actually have any compelling reason to think that this is the way the universe actually is.
Wolfram is a very smart fellow and deserves much credit for Mathematica. But these little side projects are very much outsider physics. No one is actually interested in pursuing his ideas because they're not particularly compelling. He has a couple of folks on his payroll doing work on it, and he'll show up on Lex Fridman or other internet talking head shows but that's pretty much the extent of it.
There's no harm in it, I guess. He's not a crank... though maybe somewhat crank-adjacent.
- the theory is not mainstream, guess it is not attractive enough to study it right now
- the theory is not able to make any new predictions (yet). This has to change I think to get traction.
AFAIK, the theory is not able to make _any_ predictions yet.
It purports to be one of those "theories of everything" in the form of a kind of "universe building kit".
But all it produces are a bunch of pretty "hypergraphs" that have some loose analogies with some physical theories.
If, at the end of the day, one's "theory of everything" can't replicate classical mechanics, the spectra of Hydrogen atoms, and the laws of thermodynamics, then it probably doesn't warrant bloviating on the big bang, black holes and information theory as Mr Wolfram is apt to do.
On the personal level, maybe you are right - but it doesn't matter, if he is right...
“…theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or careless thinking.
Rudolf Peierls documents an instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views.
Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong'."”