In this case, the argument is valid though. Only recently have some of the models become powerful enough (for some) to actually be useful in day to day programming, without too much hand-holding. For most, this change occurred with the introduction of Claude Opus, and OpenAI and Google have caught up. Unfortunately, none of the "open" models is at this level yet.

The field is moving fast, and asking for scientific arguments is not realistic. It takes an extreme amount of effort to show what exactly is different.

We were in a similar position with static vs dynamic typing for decades. There is still no scientific proof that one is better than the other, but it is quite obvious to professionals which flavor works better in a given situation.

So, even though the argument might be sloppy, I subscribe to it. Using DeepSeek to dismiss better models is the bad argument here.

Edit: added "(for some)" as a disclaimer that you still need to be a fairly decent programmer to actually benefit.