I’ve been working in AI - and specifically NLP - since 2003. I am no stranger to how weird quirks can sneak into overparametrized models, nor am I a stranger to how good humans can be at inferring meaning where there is none in specific language model behaviors. So, yeah, I am inclined to assume non-teleological causes are more parsimonious than inferring the presence of a strange loop, because that continues to be the winning bet. Even for generative LLMs.

Ah right, so you like AI and don't care to understand how it works.

It doesn't "decide" anything or "need" any semantic. It derives the likelihood of the token, and "bearing" is likely to come after "load".