I do consider photographers as artist, because there is an intentional creative process and the creation of the image; there’s a great deal of skill and artfulness to photography. When a photographer sees something they want to photograph, they decide the position, the blur, the composition, the focus… All of that is intentionally done to direct the attention of the viewer to the subject(s) the artists wants, perhaps in a specific order. It requires an artistic process to create art.
What I don’t consider as art is when a security camera catches footage, this isn’t art, it’s an image that was created without a creative intent behind its creator, just like AI generated images have no artistic intent behind them.
Prompting an AI to generate an image doesn’t make someone an artist just like if I were to hire an artist to draw something for me doesn’t make me an artist. Of course, if I hired an artist to draw something, the result is still art as it was created with an artistic process and intent, whereas AI lacks that therefore there is no art.
In the future, should a fully sentient and conscious AI exist, I would be able to acknowledge them as artists if they follow the same artistic intent when creating an image.
I’m open to the idea that should a sentient AI be made in the future, with complex emotions and desires, then that AI could create art. As it is right now, it is completely artless.