Yeah, I was in a hurry and didn't elaborate very well in the comment. It was more about perception than the actual replacement.

From my boring article:

If it takes 10 men an hour to produce 1 horsepower for an hour, and a gallon of gasoline is capable of 10 horsepower-hours, then at 5 bucks per gallon you are either actually worth a nickel per hour or a gallon of gasoline should cost $1500 if you are worth your $15 per hour wage.

The difference between those two perceptions of potential work value is 30,000:1

(1500 / .05).

The price discrepancy isn't that much in contemporary life (market exchanges), but in the eyes of the System of systems based on how much petroleum throughput is producing how much physical result, the human is nearly worthless and the gallon of gasoline is everything.

Since humans don't actually produce physical work anymore in 'modern' civilization, then the perception is distorted by various propaganda and protestations with a moral signaling component.

As you well point out, though, Nature is in a different league altogether, and modern oblivious humans are playing at existence and calling it "progress".