It is not at all a difficult distinction.

Weights are literally numbers computed as output. They are not instructions. The semantics of those numbers even when emplaced (loaded) in an artificial neural net is such that they do not execute. They are not instructions. LLM engines and diffusers perform searches where the weights are used to calculate additional output.

Is source code, like Python text, data? Yes. All code is data. But not all data are source code.

If I gave you a web request log, you would not assert it is a program. If I gave you a CSV file with time-series values from a sensor, you would not assert it is a program. If I hand you a database of contact information, you would not assert it is a program. Weight files are the equivalent of CSV files. They are are a dump of parameter values computed from training.

They are not a program.

The definition of computer program is well worn. So is the definition of source code, and the definition of parameters. Weights are parameters.

The difference between code and data only exists in our minds. There is no distinction. Both code and data make the computer do things (and, yes, both code and data only make the computer do things if other conditions are permitting, for example if executed with the right interpreter, or loaded with the right type of viewer). Anything that can be expressed as code can be expressed as data, and vice versa.

> Weights are literally numbers computed as output. They are not instructions.

They are instructions if you consider the LLM system itself to be a kind of weird, indirect virtual machine. Each number can be mapped to a set of instructions that are executed. Even your CPU uses numbers (machine codes) to execute.

Join me in saying: ...code is data is code is data is code is data...

If a program has to consist of instructions, then source code written in a declarative language is not a program.