>Note that nothing in the article is AI-specific: the entire argument is built around the cost of persuasion, with the potential of AI to more cheaply generate propaganda as buzzword link.

That's the entire point, that AI cheapens the cost of persuassion.

A bad thing X vs a bad thing X with a force multiplier/accelerator that makes it 1000x as easy, cheap, and fast to perform is hardly the same thing.

AI is the force multiplier in this case.

That we could of course also do persuassion pre-AI is irrelevant, same way when we talk about the industrial revolution the fact that a craftsman could manually make the same products without machines is irrelevant as to the impact of the industrial revolution, and its standing as a standalone historical era.