>it's pretty clear that they don't generalize. I've seen far to many examples of models failing to display any sense of generalization to believe otherwise

Failing to generalize on whatever you have in mind is not evidence that the models are incapable of generalization. If you really think so, just be prepared to write off a good chunk of humans as well lol.

This is generalization. https://general-pattern-machines.github.io/

Just seems to me like you've taken examples of generalization and invented an alternate meaning just so you can't admit it generalizes.

"Oh but you see this example of answering an unseen question is "insert meaningless distinction" so it doesn't really count"