I get what you mean but I think it's fundamentally different.

The folks back then had more control over the (limited) capabilities of the hardware, and in order not to just blindly type code from a magazine (which we all did) you had to develop a good understanding.

The folks with AI today have much better capabilities with (for most, anyway) much lesser understanding of what's going on.

Both are magic, but one is tinkering with spells, the other is figuring out how to ask a (slightly drunk) wizard to cast spells for you.