I don't know which specific LLM your friend used but pasting the error to the LLM usually ends in a endless loop where they tell you to do the same thing over and over again or the solution doesn't really work or generate another error.
So maybe he was lucky or he is using a very good LLM I'm not aware of.
Claude Sonnet. If your choices are to pay out of pocket for an offshore contractor and wait for weeks or pay $20/mo. for an LLM, it's pretty clear that even if you have to sit there for a few days until you get what you want, using the LLM is the better bet if you're non-technical. In either case, the code would be of questionable quality and a non-technical person would not be able to tell the difference anyways. I see it as a wash.
So maybe he was lucky or he is using a very good LLM I'm not aware of.