> I understand the incentives to pretend these algorithms are even approaching humans in overall capability, but reducing human experience like this is embarrassing to watch.

Seems like you were very much guessing what i believe. And you were not right.

I don't agree with the people who think LLMs are close to human-level-anything. But i do believe, many smarter people like you, who i agree with in the most part, do underestimate how much of what we do and believe is the result of insane, yet still just, information processing & most of what brought us so far, is instinct. The brain is good at providing stories to make us feel in control. But given enough human experience and time, one will be surprised, what artificial systems can emulate. Not to mention how much of human behaviour is emulation itself.