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No, when we write code it has a an absolute and specific meaning to the compiler. When we write words to an LLM they are written in a non-specific informal language (usually English) and processed non-deterministically too. This is an incredibly important distinction that makes coding, and asking the LLM to code, two completely different ball games. One is formal, one is not.

And yes, this isn’t a new phenomenon.

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It's different in some ways (such is evolution), but is not a distinction that matters. Kind of like the difference between imperative and declarative programming. Different language models, but all the same at the end of the day.

I hope you are joking.

The only other difference mentioned is in implementation, but concepts are not defined by implementation. Obviously you could build a C compiler with neural nets. That wouldn't somehow magically turn everything into something completely different just because someone used a 'novel' approach inside of the black box.

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