> The main way they can surprise you today is pulling in information that’s new TO YOU

Many comments here are speaking in absolutes and being myopic about what's "novel". The truth is yes, LLMs output is essentially derivative, but it's also true that a lot of what we consider novel is also derivative. The two aren't mutually exclusive at all.

Had a novel idea? You didn't get it from thin air, everyone is standing on the shoulders of everyone who came before. LLMs most of all, but that doesn't mean it can't bring disparate bits of word-encoded knowledge together and burp out something we'd consider "novel" if a person had made the same connections.

That was actually the basis of some of the mathematics proofs. It made connections from existing material. Nothing a human couldn't do looking at the same material, but we're talking speed and scale here - same as all computational processes.

A calculator does math faster but we don't call it sentient or feel inferior or dismiss the results. The only difference is LLMs are intentionally nondeterministic, as that behaviour can be usefully harnessed, pun intended.

So there's no need to argue about what's novel or not. LLMs can make novel connections via raw speed and breadth of disparate data. The human brain is more complex and "imaginative" for whatever your definition of that is - I mean fundamentally one either believes we are just physical neurons, or that there's a spiritual aspect on top, the end result is the same.

A six sided dice can also be novel if it happens to unexpectedly roll your phone number. It's a novel occurrence, same as an idea coming to mind that, TO YOU, seems novel... but we can't ask the other 8 billion people on the planet so who are we to judge what's a novel idea anyway?