When people talk about an LLM “not understanding” you’re apparently taking it to be similar to someone saying a fish doesn’t “understand” the concept of captivity, or a dog doesn’t “understand” playing fetch. Like the person is somehow narrowly defining it based on their own belief system and, like, dude, what is consciousness anyway?

That’s not what’s happening. When it’s said that an LLM doesn’t understand it’s meant in the “calculator doesn’t understand taxes” or “pachinko machine doesn’t understand probability” way. The conversation itself is silly.