Of course this doesn't mean the model has memorized all the lat, long points. Instead it means the model has a representation that allows it to work out if a lat, long is land or water in a analogous way to how a human takes a lat, long and looks it up on a map (a literal "world model" if you like).
It's a great demonstration of how LLMs aren't "Stochastic parrots" but instead have complex representations.
You ask a LLM "Land or Water: lat, long". Do it for enough points and you get a map of the world:
https://x.com/celestepoasts/status/2103232383139057950
Of course this doesn't mean the model has memorized all the lat, long points. Instead it means the model has a representation that allows it to work out if a lat, long is land or water in a analogous way to how a human takes a lat, long and looks it up on a map (a literal "world model" if you like).
It's a great demonstration of how LLMs aren't "Stochastic parrots" but instead have complex representations.