No, new more-capable and/or efficient models have been forged using bulk outputs of other models as training data. These inproved models do some valuable thing

No, new more-capable and/or efficient models have been forged using bulk outputs of other models as training data. These inproved models do some valuable things better & cheaper than the models, or ensembles of models, that generated their training data. So you could not "just ask" the upstream models. The benefits emerge from further bulk training on well-selected synthetic data from the upstream models. Yes, it's counterintuitive! That's why it's worth paying attention to, & describing accurately, rather than remaining stuck repeating obsolete folk misunderstandings.