> We’re talking about a sport — or game, depending on your point of view — where you or I could beat Magnus Carlsen, probably the best chess player in history, if we simply mimicked the moves of the best chess engine.

Except not at all, or not anymore than anyone could "beat" the world's foremost martial artist, with a gun.

For an absolute novice to mimick 100% or even a large amount of chess engine moves, it would be exceedingly obvious that they are cheating, even by the most cursory and rudimentary of cheating detection measures and mildly versed (in chess) observers.

The serious problem of cheating in chess, is not at all that a John Doe with zero chess knowledge would rise up the ranks and become the world champion cheating. The scary prospect is when cheating is done by strong chess players, because they only need two or three tips from an engine a game, to have a massive advantage over everybody else.

Carlsen himself discussed this topic last year: https://youtu.be/VcbHmHHwlUQ