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It goes towards proving the basis for what we observe: that LLMs are very good at recalling large and disparate amounts of knowledge but are poor for functionally utilizing said knowledge, especially in matters complex, unusual, or otherwise not 1:1 with stuff from their training material. Whether this proves or disproves they are sentient or intelligent or whatever is a matter of semantics, but what it does do is give us a clue as to why we observe certain disparities in their capabilities, and can help inform our expectations about what further capabilities might emerge.
Humans lean on theory, trained pattern spotting, and various heuristics or memorized devices (i.e. king opposition) when playing chess. Memory plays a role to, but outside of maybe Magnus Carlson it is dwarfed by the capacities of LLMs. This is a level of intelligence that can also be employed for creating architecture or symphonies. LLMs lean a lot harder on brute memory recall (although I won't discount entirely their capacity for higher-tier reasoning) through hyper-intensive statistical calculations, and these make it very good for things like discoursing on a broad variety of facts or semantically juggling abstractions, but they do not, apparently, allow LLMs to create complex architecture, symphonies, or do anything else involving the complex interlocking of smaller elements.
The small elements are found in its memory and can be expurgated intact individually, but the LLMs do not possess the intelligence to complexly fit them together. The LLMs do not operate at a level of intelligence that would allow that. They are hyper-intensive exploiters of lower order processes but not high tier ones. That's what's suggested by the fact they can recall 96% of a novel. That they lean on highly scaled relatively brutish methods to repeat stuff verbatim, or close enough.
Like I said:
"LLMs haven't written a beautiful symphony or designed a beautiful building" is simply moving the goal posts. There's no reason that those are the true test of putting things together and theorems and exploits don't count.
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