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I can spend years learning music theory and the piano to perform a nice sounding piece, or I can press the “demo” button on an electronic keyboard to produce a nice sounding piece.

I’ve accomplished the same end result with the demo button—in fact it may sound nicer. Is pressing the demo button more impressive?

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You've ignored my point entirely. The question is how much others would accomplish given the same or substantially similar set of tools. The demo button in your example isn't technically impressive because the "operator" hasn't done much of anything. But importantly that doesn't mean you can't do impressive things with a midi tracker.

People regularly do impressive things with LLMs. Somewhat more commonly, they do unimpressive things with them.

If you view the demo button as a tool then you’ve used a tool to achieve the same result

Essentially, I admire lengthy effort and dedication and how that sharpens your intellect. It’s hard for me to admire people who have bypassed that.

Yes exactly. My point is that using an LLM doesn't inherently mean bypassing that. Just that a lot of people use it that way.

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