I dont think anyone really cares at all about LLM code that is the exact same end result as the hand written version.
It's just in reality the LLM version is almost never the same as the hand written version, it's orders of magnitude worse.
This is not my experience *at all*. Maybe models from like 18+ months ago would produce really bad code, but in general most coding agents are amazing at finding existing code and replicating the current patterns. My job as the operator then is to direct the coding agent to improve whatever it doesn't do well.
I've heard this from a few smart people whom I know really well. They strongly believe this, they also believe that most people are deluding themselves, but not them - they're in the actually-great group, and when I pointed out the sloppiness of their LLM-assisted work they wouldn't have any of it.
I'm specifically talking about experienced programmers who now let LLMs write majority of their code.
If you add a second, skilled programmer, just having two people communicating imperfectly drops quality to 90% of the base.
If I add an LLM instead, it drops to maybe 80% of my base quality. But it's still not bad. I'm reading the diffs. There are tests and fancy property tests and even more documentation explaining constraints that Claude would otherwise miss.
So the question is if I can get 2x the features at 80% of the quality, how does that 80% compare to what the engineering problem requires?
From my own observations, the types of people I previously observed to be sloppy in their thought processes and otherwise work, correlates almost perfectly with those that seem most eager to praise LLMs.
It's almost as if the ability to identify bullshit, makes you critical of the ultimate bullshit generator.