[matrix2596]

its funny but the large language models can be seen as billions of if statements learnt from data

[iopq]

Not really, since they do a mathematical function over blocks and don't need a single if statement. They map learned data + input -> output as a pure function

[ryanlbrown]

ReLU is if-like since it only passes half of the input values with the other half becoming 0

[LargeTomato]

Is ML different than if statements? Yes.

But is it reallllly different? No not so much.