"... we can instruct AI to generate outcomes strikingly similar to actual photos,..."

They are NOT photos.

The originals are photos. They are a capture of something that really exists. The subject was there.

AI created images of something that does not exist.

LIke, you know, a painter, illustrator, visual designer.

Your example is not a comparison of photographic images.

You are showing us exactly what happens when a photograph is used as inspiration for a digital artist, or a painter, or an illustrator.

There is nothing at all photographic about the process of making an AI image.

Changing the language to invade the space of artists who have fought for their space is kind of, well, icky.

It is illustration

It looks like illustration.

It follows the same path as a painter or illustrator.

Wanna be a photographer?

Buy a camera.