You missed their point, a piece of paper and pencil is not making any decisions.
You don't have to turn this into a philosophical problem that will inevitably pitch hypothetical GAI against menial workers, thousand monkeys on a typewriter, or equivalently a young person and billions of neurons on blank canvas. That's not anymore about the technical point of the submission. It would need back up from psychology to remain remotely technical: why did the chicken cross the road?