This is not a silly question, because it's kind of silly:

Has an AI ever actually gone through all of the steps necessary to become a chess master? Go to competitions, raise in the ranks, take a plane to the masters, organize support and all the real life details necessary? Playing chess is just the small formal part here, and all of the obvious things humans obviously do, well...

Chess is a perfect information game with objective, easily measurable outcomes.

Show me a software business that looks like that and I'll agree with your hypothesis.

Otherwise I don't believe your metaphor proves much of anything.

I disagree, currently a human guiding an AI agent is far better (more productive for less money) than an AI agent with very loose non-technical guidance and The Ralph Wiggum Loop.

I don't know how much longer humans have, but I don't think they can be cut out of the loop entirely just yet.