The "bitter lesson" only applies if the model makes the agent redundant. We aren't there yet. Agentic loops are just software engineering on top of CS constructs; they help current models produce better results.
Could models eventually internalize the logic used in Claude Code / Codex / OpenCode / Aider? Maybe. But for now, keeping that complexity in the agent is more energy-efficient. Even if complex agents eventually get replaced by simple loops, these standards save tokens and time today. That’s worth something.