I disagree with the premise.

Learning should not be done only as a direct path to getting paid.

Learn to create pattern matching and intuition to solve future problems.

When you are 17 it is a good time to understand how the world works so you can build on top of it in the future. If we assume most tech is going to have an LLM as part the stack, a solid basis in how LLMs work is likely to help you in future endeavors the same way a solid basis in how the web works helps you today.

Maybe a 17 year old should learn both. As a small anecdote when I was 17 I learned a lot about load balancers, failover, and building self-healing systems running small hosting company that had to be fault tolerant when I was attending high school. This wasn't at state of the art levels (e.g. I wasn't configuring gigabit routers or global CDNs -- but it was useful pattern matching for future problems)

I currently don't touch any of that tech, but I have working knowledge that still serves me today.

Think long term.