I'd argue that the step up isn't that big, actually.  Most people working in the field of machine learning already had a geometric understanding of the models.  That's why it was not surprising to me at all that the LLMs are operations on shapes.

I get what you mean but it feels very different. A catapult is still intuitive without knowing physics. Discovering geometric shapes inside of LLMs feels different.

zuspotirko

Definitely.  People were using catapults before they understood Newtonian physics, for example.