Kinda talking about pretty squishy things here, saying something is "patently false" in the context feels pretty stifling, or at least uncharitable.

Like, what, we are all supposed to close the book on this abstract, very new question. Something that by any approximation is extremely nuanced and also pretty meaningful? Like, "oh OK, well I guess that's that then!"

Depends on the context.

In this case he is right : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49239999

Your quote shows someone BELOW the line being able to do something. That could not be considered amplification because multiplying a skill of 0 doesn’t get you anywhere. But if you want to see it that way, it doesn’t bother me.

The Tao reference is someone far ABOVE the line getting excellent results from the LLM.

So in this case the Tao example refutes the GGP claim.

My skill consisted in knowing what's possible and a testing strategy (compare frame by frame to the other filter until broken filter got fixed).