The key word here is “earned”. Now the postmaster does the same function automatically. If your character was on the loot table and awarded loot, the loot will be sent to your mailbox. They literally handed over the GM tool to the players/put it in game. If the post master can’t send it, then GMs could not award it either. That means the char was not on the boss loot table, or there is no log of the char being awarded the item.
It is automated, true. But not artificial intelligence. Those words are really over used. They don’t apply to everything with computer programming.
Most of the in-game GM tools are now in the hands of players:
- Character Unstick
- Item Restore
- Character undelete
- Mail restore
- Lost Boss item distribution via Postmaster
- Item refund timers for many vendor purchases - puts it in the hands of the player to resolve a mis-click before equipping or modifying it. GMs are now hands off that.
There are still a few things where the GM tools have not been given to players. Those are few and far between though. They can help if an unstuck tool does not work. They can help with Ongoing Harassment tickets, or real life threats. They mostly handle Social Category Appeals, Billing/Purchase issues, Account access issues, etc.
They have never been allowed to just give people items whenever someone demands it, give game hints, take bug reports, fix bugs. There are rare times the Devs tell them to handle a specific bug and give them instructions and tools to do it, but that is rare. Mostly them tinkering with accounts makes things worse when the Devs patch it.
This article here does a good job covering some of the things that GMs can do, and not do.
It helps to remember that there are many different teams at Blizz with different responsibilities.