That would be only true if gamer have a relevant overlap.

While it's a nice Sidebonus for people gaming, I would argue a better point is the current Nvidia strategy to starve their line of 40* with memory and it's much easier to get a 8gb card than anything else.

I got a 4090 primarily for the 24gb.

If you want to encourage grass roots learning interest millions of gamers with 8gb cards is a better starting point. Even if only a small percentage go for it that's still million of people.

Meanwhile the number of people that has the luxury of shelling out for a 4090 straight away for AI specifically is pretty small.

It's a bit like raspberry pis helped the tinkering world even though they're realistically slow AF. (and now unobtainable sigh)

I totally agree.

I just wanted to highlight the Rtx memory issue.