I understand what you’re having in mind, I’ve had similar intuitions about AI in early 2000s. What exactly is “truly new” is an interesting topic ofc, but it’s a separate topic. Nowadays I’m trying to look at things more empyrically, without projecting my internal intuitions on everything. In practice it does generalize knowledge, use many forms of abstract reasoning and transfer knowledge across different domains. And it can do coding way beyond the level of complexity of what average software developer does at everyday work.