I've had colleagues argue (prior to LLMs) that oral exams are superior to paper exams, for diagnosing understanding. I don't know how to validate that statement, but if the assumption is true than there is merit to finding a way to scale them. Not saying this is it, but I wouldn't say that it's fair to just dismiss oral exams entirely.

Yes, I hate oral exams, but they are definitely better at getting a whole picture of a person's understanding of topics. A lot of specialty boards in medicine do this. To me, the two issues are that it requires an experienced, knowledgeable, and empathetic examiner, who is able to probe the examinee about areas they seem to be struggling in, and paradoxically, its strength is in the fact that it is subjective. The examiner may have set questions, but how the examinee answers the questions and the follow-up questions are what differentiate it from a written exam. If the examiner is just the equivalent of a customer service representative and is strictly following a tree of questions, it loses its value.

Seems like the equivalent of claiming white board coding is the best way to evaluate software development candidates. With all the same advantages and disadvantages.