Probably the first. These guys when they first were instructed to play started playing five-in-a-row and had to learn from the very basic. The pros did not consider them to have any significant talent for the game.
Mike Novack wrote:
Perhaps we are confusing two very different meanings of "it is possible"
a) That a randomly selected beginner* could after 12 weeks of THIS method of instruction be at or above 7 kyu.
b) That there are SOME beginners* (maybe only 1:100 or 1:1000) who would be at 7 kyu or above with perhaps any method of instruction, perhaps just having played a few dozen games.
I am one of those people who only once or twice met anybody who played go (and the few I had met were beginners, maybe 20+ kyu, who told me that I was stronger than they were by enough they couldn't tell) until found a local go club, where after their having me play a few games with various opponents, told me that I was around 8 kyu.
So it is POSSIBLE in that sense. But that says nothing about method of instruction, more like "good at games" << I was a reasonable chess and bridge player when younger >>
* By "beginner" I mean somebody who ha never actually played go against any opponent, human or computer. They might have some understanding of the fundamentals of the game from books about go.