Yes, and those businesses don't need to hire an AI person. This topic is AI research jobs, not for people who sometimes has to call an ML library once in a while in their normal software job.
Edit: You asked what it is about these jobs that requires expertise. I answered: it requires expertise to create competitive models. So companies that need competitive models requires expertise.
HN is often full of abstract argumentation so it helps to know if someone has actual experience doing something instead of just pontificating about it on an internet forum.
I thought what I said was common knowledge on HN, it was last time I was in one of these discussions a few years ago. But something seems to have changed, I guess the "use ml library" jobs drowned out the others by now and that colored these discussions.
People come and go so I don't know how much can be assumed to be common knowledge but what changed is that big enterprises figured out that ML/AI can now be applied in their business contexts with low enough cost to justify the investment to shareholders without anyone getting fired if things don't work out as expected. Every business has data that can be turned into profits and investing in AI is perceived to be a good way to do that now.
Those jobs has been on the rise for over a decade now, it was the majority of people talking a few years ago as well, but at least there was more awareness of the different kinds of jobs out there.
Edit: You asked what it is about these jobs that requires expertise. I answered: it requires expertise to create competitive models. So companies that need competitive models requires expertise.