That's exactly how the wider public sees it.

It just turns out that the wider public loves peddling slop. (Not so much though when on the receiving end.)

my mom sees it as a nice internet bloke that helps her with writing emails. She once asked why it can't change background of her image from white to red if it can generate all that amazing art, and was genuinely disappointed that she can't get it to understand what she wants. You have skewed view on public perception on llms - they don't think about it, they just use it.

> helps her with writing emails

Yeah, exactly - like I said, generating slop.

(That same hypothetical mom will get annoyed when on the receiving end of a slop-generated email, though.)