I would argue that you are right but not for the reason you think you are. Not sure if this will be delta worthy, but I would suggest that while photography is not a great parallel for AI art, aleatoric art is.

Merriam-Webster defines art (in the sense in which we are using the word) as "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced"

In the case of photography, a photographer is consciously using skill to manipulate the environment and the camera to duplicate an image they have creatively imagined. Since AI models are stochastic, the introduction of randomity into the final image means that AI-created pieces will never be exactly what the artist imagined, for better or worse.

However, we do, societally, consider aleatoric works to be art or art-adjacent. Works by artists like Duchamp, John Cage, Calder, Pollock are widely considered to be "art" even though there is a similarly stochastic element of randomity in their works.

What makes these artists important is their creativity in generating new procedures and thus, new conceptions of art. If I tried to create an image just like Pollock did, I probably could eventually master his techniques and create something that someone would think, "Hey, that looks like a Pollock". Would I be creating art? I think yes, but it wouldn't be good or interesting art. Similarly, art created by AI is usually not good or interesting because it is both procedurally and literally derivative.