We don’t even have a good definition for what “understanding” actually means. It’s like the word “intelligence” - there are dozens of dictionary definitions.

I find it pretty ridiculous to dismiss a long, well-thought-out piece of writing in its entirety just because one word was used in a way you don’t like. Even if you disagree with how they used the term, you most likely still understand what they meant by it. LLMs aren’t generally intelligent, but they’re also not as dumb as people make them out to be. There’s clearly real information processing happening in the background that produces accurate answers way more often than pure chance would allow.