I don't really know what I'm talking about but I imagined the difference was always quantitative (in a nutshell: they need less time).
Washing machines can’t do anything humans do, they just remove labour. Trucks don’t do anything longboats can’t, it just need less labour and time/effort to build roads rather than canals. Computers can’t calculate anything humans can’t dry run by hand etc.
Everything in reality is about reducing time/effort/material/cost or achieving more with less resource.
What stops us from doing any specific thing is always allocation of resources - there's finite amount of time/effort/material/labor available, and past trivial amounts we need more and more people to agree on some allocation. Reduction of time/effort/material/labor costs of any thing is what moves it closer from "infeasible" to "feasible" for us to do. But again, short of violating laws of physics, it was never "impossible".
What I mean is that "can be done by humans" is ill defined. Are you allowed to use pencil and paper? That's not part of your body? Do you have to be strapped into a coffin for it to count as human-done? How about wheels, sticks and stones? Allowed to use those tools? How about an abacus? Or is electricity the line to draw?
The actual implication is, and always been, different: AI did something humans theoretically could, given enough time, motivation and budget, but they didn't, because it wasn't the best use of time or money. AI therefore demonstrates its value, by opening up problems that were previously uneconomical to solve.
This is less valuable than me asking chatgpt to find me a recipe.
They cannot afford to lose the worth of their time solving that problem.
There's a lot we can't afford to work on simply because living has stupidly high overhead.
Yes! I believe that class of people are called "investors."
Your point is basically correct, I think, but the illusion of value that a corporate entity offers, and the reality of the value that the corporate entity is creating, are distinct things.