I actually agree with what you say.

It's sort of like in the past you needed colors, pencils, crayons, etc.—and not to forget a lot of skill—to create realistic visual art on a canvas. And then, when photo cameras came out, you could create more realistic pictures in a split second.

So my point in the article was that the fact that the Internet is flooded with selfies and crappy photos (AI art) didn't put visual artists out of business (human writers). We are still in awe when someone can create a photo-realistic image with just a pencil. And we most certainly wouldn't call a tourist walking around and shooting random photos an artist. So the tourist shooting photos willy-nilly is no competition for the visual artist.

But, as you very well point out, you can create art with a photo camera (i.e. with AI tools). But I feel like we need a different word for AI art generated this way.

When we talk about photography, we distinguish between selfies and self-portraits. One is what every idiot with a smartphone camera can do. The other is what you actually need some skill for.

So when I was talking about AI Art, I was talking about the equivalent of cheap selfies. Whereas you seem to be talking about self-portraits. So it seems to me we are using “AI art” to mean different things. Hence why I think we need two different words to distinguish these two ideas :)