There is one thing that can be done now, I suggest. I'm aware there's no silver bullet for low quality content, flags, and spam.

SMTs may improve things in the future, bring more stake to quality activities, yes, but there is, however, something simple and easy that can be done now to help deal with the above issues:

Installing MathJax (async) or KaTeX (sync) on the servers which typeset Steemit.

I'm thinking of bringing people from MathOverflow. — Steemit with LaTeX is an easy pitch there — monetized arXiv with archived comments. That community might be helpful. Spam lasts average ten to fifteen minutes there.

More serious people, like scientists are joining; but the rate can be improved.

LaTeX typesetting allows Steemit to absorb MathOverflow and other existing communities which have individuals willing to curate for quality and having the resources to vest in sufficiently larges stakes to make a difference. They might make a big difference, if they come here to play, — help deal with all the current problems.

Larger systems behave differently from a smaller ones — in this case better. A stubborn minority dedicated to quality can have a disproportionate impact, if there are sufficiently many people in it. In this case, a positive impact.

I'm discussing with others building a busy.org- like interface, but with MathJax installed, and a little extra code to the post editor. (It's not externally loaded anymore, since a few months ago, so no more security concerns.)

However, if you can get MathJax directly on Steemit, that would not be third party and better. There's no silver bullet; yet there are strategies which make a visible difference. I suggest that would create a feedback that further improves things.