I've used the "Icerberg Principle" to explain this kind of thing many times. And it's true not just for AI but for almost any kind of non-trivial, production-grade tech. The things under the water cannot be an afterthought; they're essential. The problem, however, is that people without what I call "sympathy for software" often fail to see this nuance and complexity.

As an engineer, it's no use lamenting this fact or expecting things to be any different, because they will _never_ change. Your job as a CTO ends up morphing into the "Chief Vocabulary Officer", where you need to communicate these complexities in ways that people _can_ understand.