What's more amazing to me is the average human, only able to hold a relatively small body on knowledge in their mind, can generate things that are completely novel.
Just because there are lots of tasks which can be accomplished without the need for anything novel doesn't mean LLMs can match a human. It just means humans spend a lot of time doing some really boring stuff.
Was an individual mind responsible for us as humanity landing on the moon? No. Could an individual mind have achieved this feat? Also no.
Put differently, we should be comparing the compressed blob of human knowledge against humanity as a collective rather than as individuals.
Of course, if my individual mind could be scaled such that it could learn and retain all of human knowledge in a few years, then sure, that would be a fair comparison.
Yes, I can. - I can build an unusual, but functional piece of furniture, not describe it, not design it. I can create a chair I can sit on it. An LLM is just an algorithm. I am a physically embodied intelligence in a physical world.
- I can write a good piece of fiction. LLMs have not demonstrated the ability to do that yet. They can write something similar, but it fails on multiple levels if you've been reading any of the most recent examples.
- I can produce a viable natural intelligence capable of doing anything human beings do (with a couple of decades of care, and training, and love). One of the perks of being a living organism, but that is an intrinsic part of what I am.
- I can have a novel thought, a feeling, based on qualia that arise from a system of hormones, physics, complex actions and inhibitors, outrageously diverse senses, memories, quirks. Few of which we've even begun to understand let alone simulate.
- And yes I can both count the 'r's in strawberry, and make you feel a reflection of the joy I feel when my granddaughter's eyes shine when she eats a fresh strawberry, and I think how close we came to losing her one night when someone put 90 rounds through the house next door, just a few feet from where her and her mother were sleeping.
So yeah, I'm sure I can create things an LLM can't.
The only thing you mentioned is the fan fic and I would happily take the bet that an LLM could win out against a skilled person based on a blind vote.