Technically, the claim is true, but only technically. I think the reason it is not a reliable level of abstraction is due to what I like to call "directive gap"

Technically, the claim is true, but only technically. I think the reason it is not a reliable level of abstraction is due to what I like to call "directive gap" (https://srikanth.sastry.name/garden/directive-gap/ https://srikanth.sastry.name/garden/directive-gap/), which is the distance between the human's goal the context available to the LLM. Theoretically, if the directive gap is zero, then with very high probability you will get the correct code. If you think of 'programming in X' as a process, then you have multiple iterations as you go from incorrect code to correct code, and the same can be true of 'programming in LLM'. As you iterate on the prompts and have verification in place, whether it is spec verification, TLA+, unit testing, CI, etc., you can get the same effect. Now, it is an open question whether this is simpler than programming in any modern programming language. By the time you figure out the exact prompt trajectory that will build what you want, you might as well have used some fancy autocomplete IDE to write the same code. It really depends on your fluency with that specific language. People are usually very fluent in natural language, and so it levels the playing field so to speak.