[hackinthebochs]

Of course for humans words have no inherent meaning either, they're just sequences of characters or patterns of sounds. It is what words are associated with that carries meaning. A large part of this is how words relate to other words. LLMs can capture this in principle. What LLMs lack is the direct association of a word with sensory experience. But it's an open question how relevant this is in practice to understanding.

[psvv]

Fair point. Humans experience reality and use words to reflect that. LLMs only have the words. And it's an open question how much of a limitation that is to understanding.