I used to hand roll the assembly, but now I delegate that work to my agent, clang. I occasionally override clang or give it hints, but it usually gets it right most of the time.
clang doesn't "understand" the hints because it doesn't "understand" anything, but it knows what to do with them! Just like codex.
Given an input clang will always give the same output, not quite the same for llms. Also nobody ever claimed compilers were intelligent or that they "understood" things
An LLM will also give the same output for the same input when the temperature is zero[1]. It only becomes non-deterministic if you choose for it to be. Which is the same for a C compiler. You can choose to add as many random conditionals as you so please.
But there is nothing about a compiler that implies determinism. A compiler is defined by function (taking input on how you want something to work and outputting code), not design. Implementation details are irrelevant. If you use a neural network to compile C source into machine code instead of more traditional approaches, it most definitely remains a compiler. The function is unchanged.
[1] "Faulty" hardware found in the real world can sometimes break this assumption. But a C compiler running on faulty hardware can change the assumption too.
"Went" is a curious turn of phrase, but I take it to mean that you used an LLM on someone else's hardware of unknown origin? How are you ensuring that said hardware isn't faulty? It is a known condition. After all, I already warned you of it.
