So, does that mean that AI photos have merit when they win photo competitions, as has happened in the past? Seems like the point he was trying to make would go both ways.
Sure, AI photos have their merit. I believe manual and ai generated photos are their own categories and can be appreciated seperately as such.
Why limit AI photos to being a clone of real photos? Push expression of the subconscious, the psychedelic, the eldritch, etc. Make something creatively unique from the photoreal, something manual photos would struggle to recreate.