They're a form of lossy compression. I suspect they are doing less than we think they are. They might be fooling us into thinking there's more intelligence ther

They're a form of lossy compression. I suspect they are doing less than we think they are. They might be fooling us into thinking there's more intelligence there than there really is in the same way fractals can fool us into thinking "the whole universe must be a big fractal!" by their uncanny ability to replicate complex shapes.