I think the argument is quite valid. OP writes "business partner". It begs the question - would their business partner get on board if they didn't have a AI subscription by their side? How about instead of 5K PR, OP got the same half-baked buggy crap or absolutely nothing instead? We don't know the business partner, but we are ready to throw the problem at AI agents right away. Well, I find this not particularly productive.

> but we are ready to throw the problem at AI agents right away

I'm not sure I understand this correctly, but I assume it means blaming the agents? If so, that's not my point - I'm describing how many people are using them to be lazy, which shouldn't be particularly controversial.

To your other question: if OP had gotten half the size PR to go through, that sounds more manageable to me? If they had gotten nothing, that could be a useful signal about the capability of their business partner, worth knowing now rather than later. Could one imagine a situation where AI enables a thoughtful business partner to provide more value? Absolutely. Should this be the default assumption? I'd argue that it absolutely shouldn't.

we started this project before was mainstream (we got sidetracked by other work) and him having less experience but being a very good programmer (I went with him to college and worked together for years), he would listen to my input, fix, and adjust. I have decades of experience.

This is all but gone