Humans occupy
Machines merely go places
Either we occupy the high ground, or we submit ourselves to those who do
I don’t think its either/or. I think it’s both. But I think we can go much faster, wider and deeper with machines long before significant human settlements. I am also not convinced just having people there makes that much of a difference from a strategic standpoint. Certainly deep space settlements in this solar system and other star systems will be predominantly machines and not humans.