Is that any different than any worms developed in the past decades? If you want to call them worms/virus/replicate (ie using real world names for their digital behavior) I'm not trying to police that. I just don't see the difference between a worm/virus created today with an LLM vs one 'yesterday' without an LLM.

Sure, the difference is that the cost of making and maintaining a worm has gone from "many skilled developers working full time" to "$20/month + an internet connection" and, at current rate of progress, probably to "a local open source model on a laptop" within 6-9 months