Terry Pratchett basically describing LLMs in the Discworld in 1996

From Hogfather (1996), in a scene featuring Hex, a gigantic ant-powered machine that can converse and produce written responses to human questions:

“Amazin’,” said Ridcully. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe on Hex’s “Anthill Inside” sticker, causing Ponder to wince. “This thing’s a kind of big artificial brain, then?”

“You could think of it like that,” said Ponder, carefully. “Of course, Hex doesn’t actually think. Not as such. It just appears to be thinking.”

[...]

“But he’s not actually thinking?”

“Er...no.”

“So...he just gives the impression of thinking but really it’s just a show?”

“Er...yes.”

“Just like everyone else, then, really,” said Ridcully.

😂