“The reason a neural net can be successful in writing an essay is because writing an essay turns out to be a ‘computationally shallower’ problem than we thought. And in a sense this takes us closer to “having a theory” of how we humans manage to do things like writing essays, or in general deal with language.”
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/
How many works does “an essay” cover?