alt Hacker News> industry machinery could match the average artisan or even beat the average
Whether it could is distinct from whether it will. I'm sure you've noticed the decline in the quality of clothing. Markets a mercurial and subject to manipulation through hype (fast fashion is just a marketing scheme to generate revenue, but people bought into the lie).
With code, you have a complicating factor, namely, that LLMs are now consuming their own shit. As LLM use increases, the percentage of code that is generated vs. written by people will increase. That risks creating an echo chamber of sorts.
I don't agree with the limited point about fast fashion/enthittification, etc.
Quick check: Do you want to go back to pre-industrial era then - when according to you, you had better options for clothing?
Personally, I wouldn't want that - because I believe as a customer, I am better served now (cost/benefit wise) than then.
As to the point about recursive quality decline - I don't take it seriously, I believe in human ingenuity, and believe humans will overcome these obstacles and over time deliver higher quality results at bigger scale/lower costs/faster time cycles.