Liz is a lady, and I am confident she did not AI generate this article. Aside from it clearly having her authorial voice, here is another piece she has written:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/23/24326077/i-asked-chatgpt

> Aside from it clearly having her authorial voice, [...]

LLMs are pretty good at imitating styles, if asked to do so. It's just their default style that's easy to recognise.

(You are probably right in everything you say! I just wanted to point out that style of an article isn't necessarily a giveaway.)