Good comparison. Engineers who build cars and understand their intricacies oftentimes just work on one small thing at a time, even in teams. Like a team just working on breaks. The mechanics can piece the stuff together and keep it working in a real world setting. But nowadays a self-declared "AI Expert" in that metaphor might be just some person who knows how to drive a car.
If you think back to when cars were introduced, knowledge of how to drive a car was actually a rare skill! People weren't born with that inherent knowledge, so someone who could operate a vehicle (and do some basic maintenance) was an expert.
Nowadays, that would be laughed at. But AI is more comparable to cars from 1900 than modern vehicles.
