I think the main difference between shortcuts like "compilers" and shortcuts like "LLMs" is determinism. I don't need to know assembly because I use a compiler that is very well specified, often mathematically proven to introduce no errors, and errs on the side of caution unless specifically told otherwise.
On the other hand, LLMs are highly nondeterministic. They often produce correct output for simple things, but that's because those things are simple enough that we trust the probability of it being incorrect is implausibly low. But there's no guarantee that they won't get them wrong. For more complicated things, LLMs are terrible and need very well specified guardrails. They will bounce around inside those guardrails until they make something correct, but that's more of a happy accident than a mathematical guarantee.
LLMs aren't a level of abstraction, they are an independent entity. They're the equivalent of a junior coder who has no long term memory and thus needs to write everything down and you just have to hope that they don't forget to write something down and hope that some deterministic automated test will catch them if they do forget.
If you could hire an unpaid intern with long term memory loss, would you?
On the other hand, LLMs are highly nondeterministic. They often produce correct output for simple things, but that's because those things are simple enough that we trust the probability of it being incorrect is implausibly low. But there's no guarantee that they won't get them wrong. For more complicated things, LLMs are terrible and need very well specified guardrails. They will bounce around inside those guardrails until they make something correct, but that's more of a happy accident than a mathematical guarantee.
LLMs aren't a level of abstraction, they are an independent entity. They're the equivalent of a junior coder who has no long term memory and thus needs to write everything down and you just have to hope that they don't forget to write something down and hope that some deterministic automated test will catch them if they do forget.
If you could hire an unpaid intern with long term memory loss, would you?