Complete denial that AI/LLMs can produce novel, good things is an indefensible stance at this point. But the large volume of AI slop is still an unsolved problem, and the claim that "AI will still mostly deliver slop" seems to be almost certainly correct in the near-term.

We've had a few decades to address email spam, and still haven't manage to disincentivize it enough to stop being the main challenge for email as a communication medium. I don't think there's much hope that we'll be able to disincentive the widespread, large-scale creation of AI slop even after more expensive models with higher-quality output are available.

It's quite simple: it has yet to show it can actually be useful, and all the claims that it can have (so far) turned out to be self delusion if not deliberate lies. When the industry is run by grifters, you shouldn't really be surprised when people stop believing them.