My worldview is materialist and deterministic in principle. But day to day I'm an existentialist with a touch of spiritualism.
To me, a fairly pragmatic way of characterizing these tools day to day is to anthropomorphize them. One benefit of this heuristic: they simulate conversation and it's much easier to use them with a conversational flow. Another one is to create an approximation of a character, which makes it easier to build a useful intuition for what they can and cannot do.
Obviously these kinds of heuristics do break down. But it's obvious enough when they do so one can switch into a more precise and analytical mode of thinking.
To me, a fairly pragmatic way of characterizing these tools day to day is to anthropomorphize them. One benefit of this heuristic: they simulate conversation and it's much easier to use them with a conversational flow. Another one is to create an approximation of a character, which makes it easier to build a useful intuition for what they can and cannot do.
Obviously these kinds of heuristics do break down. But it's obvious enough when they do so one can switch into a more precise and analytical mode of thinking.