I think you raise an excellent point, and can use your point to figure out how it could apply in this case.

All the tools that are stirrups were used "by the horse" (you get what I mean); that implies to me that so long as the AI tools are used by the programmers (what we've currently got), they're stirrups.

The steam engines were used by the people "employing the horse" - ala, "people don't buy drills they buy holes" (people don't employ horses, they move stuff) - so that's what to look for to see what's a steam engine.

IMHO, as long as all this is "telling the computer what to do", it's stirrups, because that's what we've been doing. If it becomes something else, then maybe it's a steam engine.

And, to repeat - thank you for this point, it's an excellent one, and provides some good language for talking about it.