The knowledge isn't of any use to us unless it is understandable to us. Many species understand things about the world around us that we are unable to explain or understand, even if it's just pure instinct on their part. These things are very useful to them, but have no value to us until we can understand and explain it, which then allows us to make use of it.

People saw birds fly for all of human history, but it was only recently that humans were able to make something fly and understand why. Once we understood, we were able to do amazing things, but before that, the millions of birds able to fly were of no help beyond inspiration for the dream.

This is not true.

We use drug-sniffing and guide dogs in a way similar to how we use LLMs. We don't really understand them at a fundamental level, we can't make electronic dog noses (otherwise we'd dispense with the silliness and just install drug detectors instead), but dogs are useful, so we use them.