  According to a conjecture recently put forward in arXiv:1806.08362, the
scalar potential $V$ of any consistent theory of quantum gravity satisfies a
bound $|\nabla V|/V \geq {\cal O}(1)$. This forbids dS solutions and supports
quintessence models of cosmic acceleration. Here we point out that in the
simplest models incorporating the Standard Model in addition to quintessence,
with the two sectors decoupled as suggested by observations, the proposed bound
is violated by 50 orders of magnitude. However, a very specific coupling
between quintessence and just the Higgs sector may still be allowed and
consistent with the conjecture.
