I don't think many informed people doubt the utility of LLMs at this point. The potential of human-like AGI has profound implications far beyond utility models,

I don't think many informed people doubt the utility of LLMs at this point. The potential of human-like AGI has profound implications far beyond utility models, which is why people are so eager to bring it up. A true human-like AGI basically means that most intellectual/white collar work will not be needed, and probably manual labor before too long as well. Huge huge implications for humanity, e.g. how does an economy and society even work without workers?