Agents are always combining the same underlying weights to their inputs, relying on the same maps of semi-semantic space and the relationships between those that it was leaning towards at training time. The fact that it’s successful in making lots of people have an Eliza effect doesn’t make it understand something. It’s simulating understanding based on an enormous corpus of text, much of which is people working through things or sharing an understanding of something. Unless you believe that all intellectual activity is about finding the space between words you shouldn’t believe LLMs have any chance at understanding anything.