> just 20 years ago, all the most popular software shipped with NO tests
not sure what you're point is here. It sounds similar to "we use to use blood letting and leeches and doctors didn't clean their hands and everything was fine so what are you getting at?"
Good tests have real benefits. The fact that people shipped without them in the past in no way suggests they aren't needed or have no point.
While I don’t necessarily agree with them, I think their point is that AI can write slop code, and then write slop tests to “prove” it works (often without proving anything in practice). Whereas humans used to write code that worked despite having zero tests because we’re inherently capable of understanding code and predicting its behaviour from the implementation alone - something many LLMs seem to still struggle with.