Chatgpt says whole life was the quasi Roth IRA decades ago and was great , is this accurate ?

I was curious why whole life insurance was so prolific back in the day , and basically chatgpt explained that before Roth IRAs or even Ira’s the only good retirement savings beyond your employer pension was a whole life policy which used to be better with higher yields and dividends due to less strict internal investment choices , and you’d essentially take out portions of your cash value in retirement and the loan would eventually be paid by your death benefit . But today they aren’t structured at all to get good returns and the commission is higher .
Is this accurate ?