gen-class and gen-interface docstrings begin, "When compiling,...". It is not clear what that means.
After all, when is Clojure not compiling? The clojure.org home page says "Clojure is a compiled language" and the docstrings for unchecked-math, warn-on-reflection, case, and defmacro suggest that compiling is turning forms into bytecode - a nonstop phenomenon.
Elsewhere in clojure core: The defrecord and deftype docstrings refer to "AOT compiling". The compile-files docstring refers to "compiling files", not clear if referring to input files or output files. The docstring of "compile" refers to "classfiles". These may or may not all be related.
If gen-class, gen-interface, compile, and compile-files mean "AOT compiling", then let's make that explicit. If they don't, then let's please make their true meaning clear.