Bigger context windows seem to be solving a different problem than understanding

One thing I've been wondering lately:

We often talk about larger context windows as if they're equivalent to better understanding.

But in practice those feel like different problems.

Access to information keeps improving.

Understanding relationships between pieces of information still feels much harder.

I notice this most when working with larger software projects.

You can give a model access to a huge amount of code, but that doesn't necessarily mean it understands how the system evolved, which components are tightly coupled, or where risk actually lives.

Curious whether others think these are fundamentally different problems or if larger context eventually solves both.

Been exploring this while working on RepoWise:

https://github.com/repowise-dev/repowise