> So what does it tell us that an LLM is "stochastic"? About as much as we could glean from the knowledge that the signaling in the computer systems we happen to be using right now is "electronic". It's an interesting fact about the world, but not something especially helpful to make predictions from.

I think we've been talking past each other. The term “parrot” may do a disservice to AI, I think, however, that one can go so far as to say that AI is a stochastic recombinator that has the potential to solve complex problems. And I do think that this a pretty interesting thing that goes above being just an interesting fact about the world, since it reveals quite a bit about what we have considered to be special to us is not so special, namely, that reasoning and complex problem-solving may not require understanding at all, but can be achieved through pure stochastics. This may not help you with making predictions, but I think that anyone with a curious mind should also be interested in the implications for our view of humanity.