[343rwerfd]

Since frontier models evolved beyond the very basic stuff from maybe 2020, "LLM can only make predictions of word sequences" only describes a small fraction of the inner processes that the frontier systems use to get to the point of writing the answer to a prompt.

i.e. output filtering (grammar probably), several layers of censoring, maybe some had limited 2nd hand internet access to enrich answers with newer data (ala Grok with X live data), etc.

Just like you said "predicts the next word", you could invent and/or define a new verb to specifically explain what the LLMs does when it "undertands" something, or when it "lies" about something.

Most probably, the actual process of "lying" for a LLM is far from being based on the way humans understand something, and probable is more precisely described as going through several layers of mathematical stuff, translating that to text, having the text filtered, censored, enriched, and so on, at end you read the output and the thing is "lying to you".