Technically it's not really much different from just giving the LLM an OpenAPI spec.
The actual thing that's different is that an OpenAPI spec is meant to be an exhaustive list of every endpoint and every parameter you could ever use. Whereas an MCP server, as a proxy to an API, tends to offer a curated set of tools and might even compose multiple API calls into a single tool.
It's a farce, though. We're told these LLMs can already perform our jobs, so why should they need something curated? A human developer often gets given a dump of information (or nothing at all), and has to figure out what works and what is important.
You should try and untangle what you read online about LLMs from the actual technical discussion that's taking place here.
Everyone in this thread is aware that LLMs aren't performing our jobs.