> Most (or maybe even all) programmers and mathematicians are worse at their respective field than an AI swarm equipped with a good harness, and a good deal more expensive as well.

We can START discussing this when someone defines "worse" and we all agree on it. For SW engineering, we've been trying to define "good" for decades and we still don't know shit.

> There's a weird contradiction you see from AI skeptics where they're afraid of how AI will change the world, but also seem convinced that AI will only ever produce slop that nobody would ever pay money for.

No, that's a total straw man. For example, I am afraid of how AI will change the world, but for that it doesn't have to stop producing slop. I'm afraid of how the slop is CURRENTLY changing the world, people and societies. Frankly, I don't even care whether someone ever pays for the slop. This isn't a "I'm going to lose my job" kind of fear, it's a "we're running education into the ground and rapidly transforming into a low-trust society" kind of fear.