> AI agents mean that dollars can be directly translated into open-source code contributions, and dollars are much less scarce than capable OSS programmer hours.

I think this is true, but misses the point: quantity of code contributions is absolutely useless without quality. You're correct that OSS programmer hours are the most scarce asset OSS has, but AI absolutely makes this scarce resource even more scarce by wasting OSS programmers' time sifting through clanker slop.

There literally isn't an upside. The code produced by AI simply isn't good enough consistently enough.

That's setting aside the ethical issues of stealing other people's work and spewing even more carbon into the atmosphere.