No, and it's easy to find ample research backing it up.

Agreed.

Most people are not self reflective reflective enough to notice. Need to trust the studies.

Far more plausible than the AI ideas.

I find it far more likely these are smart people running without oversight for years pre-COVID, relying on being smart at 2am change windows. Now half or a full std. dev. lower on the IQ scale, hubris means fewer guard rails before change, and far lower ability to recover during change window.