> frontend used to be a highly specialized skill, requiring knowledge of semantic HTML, CSS, the differences of various browsers, accessibility, progressive enhancement, network performance, interface design and user testing – to just name a few.

It still is!

> To distinguish what they’re doing from what “frontend” has become, practitioners of this arcane art nowadays often refer to it as the “front of the frontend”.

I have never heard this term before, but I'm sure someone will point me to the bullshit influencer who came up with it?

Frontend frameworks are really just for web apps and most frontend devs are familiar with several. If they cannot also write a web page from scratch, they're not really a web dev. This is not up for debate. If you hire someone for the role, you need them to handle the work. AI is not going to help you here when it gets into the testing and bugfix phase.