It takes (at least) six months to learn to fly a helicopter (or, in the case of the linked video from the article, probably a lifetime).
It takes ten minutes to learn to fly a quadcopter.
It takes ten minutes to learn to fly a quadcopter.
Less time than a normal helicopter though, so I get your point.
Is it even possible to fly quadcopters without stabilization? Would they not start spinning out of control as soon as they take off?
Sure, learning to hover in one general spot is doable in 10 minutes. I wouldn't call that "learning to fly".
What about very basic maneuvers like landings (no bouncing around, no dropping from too high, and at the spot where you wanted to land) or circles/eights, dealing with ambiguous orientations when your copter is high enough (~ 6m ?), nose-in flying / dealing with control reversal and recovering from orientation loss?