It seems unreasonable to expect an LLM to have an accurate "mental model" of a bicycle since most humans don't either, and it's our written descriptions the LLM is learning from. A multi-modal model trained on captioned pictures isn't much better off, since what would induce it to memorize the details that we also abstract away ("a frame connecting it all together") ? Even posessing AGI, most humans still can't reason their way to a functional bicycle.

Comparing bicycles between LLMs doesn't really tell us much, since how do you differentiate an AI with a good model of a bicycle, but that does a poor job of drawing one with SVG, vs one that that has a much worse model but is in fact doing a great job of rendering it?!

I suppose you could say the same for the Pelican, although it does seem more reasonable to guess that most models could accurately describe the body plan of an animal even if they can't do a good job of drawing one with SVG.

For anyone who downvoted this due to thinking that humans, hence LLMs, DO have a good model of a bicycle, I challenge you to draw one.

No cheating and looking at pictures. Pen and paper. Do the easy bit first and draw wheels, seat, handlebars, pedals and chain. Add a stick figure riding it if that helps.

Now draw the frame.

Now google a photo of a bicycle.