AI productivity only works if you were the only person in the world using it and no-one else was aware of it. You will look like a wizard, passing off slop to others who are too amazed and ignorant to know any better.

The fact that that is exactly what is happening (everyone passing off slop to everyone else and pretending either they didn't use AI or it isn't slop actually) is telling.

The mistake was giving it to everyone too early too fast. "If everyone is super, no one will be"

I prefer working alone, and even more so now with AI. When I work alone and own the whole project, I make the judgment call when and where slop is fine and where it's not. When working on a team there is always this battle to get code through the tests and review, often for code that is temporary or simply does not matter that much. Reviews rarely result in any meaningful changes anyway, unless the changes are < 50 LoC, in which case it's nitpicked to death instead of the "LGTM" you get for larger PRs. It all reminds me of airport security theater. Similarly, a 2 hour flight is now a 4 hour time waste of time, and a simple change that should take 10 minutes now takes up most of your day.