I've heard multiple people claim an ankle weight on the steering wheel is sufficient for hands-free driving.

Actively combated by Tesla as they detect it also. They actively apply patches to try and detect things like this and block it.

Yeah and they could hire a professional driver or a engineer and IPO for billions a life sized driving AI powered crypto robot too. Look, like clearly google + ctrl-v scripting or running an one click deployment exe on your computer on a whim is different than physically ordering/picking up something and then installing it into a vehicle?

Of course they're different, but you're trying to argue that the former takes objectively less effort than the latter, and it doesn't. One or the other may take less effort depending on who you are and what you know.

Which would get you in trouble if you were to be pulled over by the police at any moment.