This is a false dichotomy. We can make statements about the distribution, and we have fuzzy models about certain sets of inputs and outputs. We can steer the outputs.
It’s not completely random. We just don’t understand why the tricks we learned work.
We know why it looks like cognition. Because OpenAI and Antropic put a lot of effort and training to humanize the output and make it sound like a person.
Regardless of negative consequences it brings. They have that project of creating tech god which will save the unborn people thousands years in the future ... so people living now dont matter.
“Putting a lot of effort and training” into a dog or an inanimate carbon rod would never result in something that can plausibly substitute for human mental labor and looks likely to eventually surpass us at many tasks, no matter how much you put in.
So I don’t think “labs worked hard” is the same thing is “we know scientifically how these things work in any real level of detail”. The ability to build a thing, even if building it is hard, is not the same thing as understanding of what the thing is or how it works, not even a little bit.
People will just roll their eyes at you and say "the human mind is nothing but a dice roll too" and call you a slope-headed neanderthal before continuing apace.
That is, in this case, it should not be used to influence decisions that can start a war.