I agree with your larger point, however:
> camcorders have been around for ages but you don't have millions of directors around just because you make a tool more accessible
That’s exactly what happened. There are more filmmakers than ever now due to the accessibility of cheap cameras, then digital tools, including affordable HD cameras. Especially once the DSLR revolution took off circa 2011, which enabled budget-constrained aspiring filmmakers to use prime lens sets rather than fixed/built in zooms on cheap camcorders. With proper lighting they could actually make something look pretty damn cinematic. The entire industry has radically shifted in the last 15 years in particular due to these changes, but it started to shift around 2000 if I have to assign a particular year to it.
When you had to shoot on film stock, which was expensive and had a whole processing pipeline that one couldn’t reasonably do at home, there was a much thicker barrier to entry. You basically had to go to film school or get into the industry before you could start making your own stuff. Hell the Duplass brothers started out on crappy camcorders. Now? A smartphone, some cheap LED’s, a basic computer, you can really make something.
My point was along this line: writing code is different than building a product as much as recording a video is different than telling a story with a movie (long and short that you want).
Do everyone has the capability to build a comprehensive set of features that we call a product to solve problems that people or business have in their life?
That’s why I’m always skeptical about measuring AI impact based solely on quantitative metrics.
Like I said I agree with your larger point. But it’s actually not a great example, because lowering the barrier to entry, particularly the hardware side, led to a massive increase in the number of filmmakers and films in the world. People telling full stories from start to finish included. The reason it doesn’t graft well onto the AI discussion is that the process and output are controlled and measurable. There’s no real black box element. What you see is what you get and the output of the camera is fully controlled by the user.