Yeah, I've even seen people in top ML jobs glowingly describe the main value of CoPilot as (just) smart autocomplete, but copying/regurgitation of algorithms ought to be something that even today's LLMs should be capable of.
Of course there's always Google search too if you are just looking for an algorithm, but LLMs help in the discovery process since you can describe what you need without knowing the name of it.
Using LLMs to find reasonable subset of algorithms for a problem sounds like a valid use case. Could even get naive implementation and lead to comparing them to pick right one.
If they take the LLMs advice were they astute or just lucky? You'd have to ask the candidate to go into details to get any signal, and if the algorithm is hard enough for them to have to consult an LLM, they might not be able to do that.
I was referring to LLM use on the job (or hobby), not as any part of interviewing process.
The reality is that most programmers can go an entire career without being algorithmically challenged, and on the rare occasion you need to do/optimize something and don't know what the best options are, then you can either just ask a colleague, or ask online, or Google, or nowadays discuss it with an AI!
Of course there's always Google search too if you are just looking for an algorithm, but LLMs help in the discovery process since you can describe what you need without knowing the name of it.