The article simply says "Trust me, just don't."

No it doesn't. It says “don't, Unless you're extremely surgical with it and know exactly what you're doing”.

Which is a sensible piece of advice.

> Don't use Topaz AI, Anime4k, RealESRGAN, RIFE, etc. Trust me, just don't.

Is what the submission says about Topaz and similar.

> Applying any kind of post-processing[4]

Is what the footnote you quoted is linked to.

There's no mistake, “Topaz and similar” == “any kind of postprocessing”.

Right, but since the "AI upscaling" "advice" is more specific, doesn't that take precedent?

> Do post-processing if you're surgical about it

> Don't do AI upscaling regardless, never do it, and don't even ask why

Is the impression I get from this article.