The definition of "creative" and "art" are, indeed, contested in this discussion. Establishing a definition is, and has always been, a large part of many debates. We don't have to necessarily agree, but at least be able to state our position and discuss from there.
Instead, you did not engage with this concept until now and relied on logical fallacy. When I pointed this out, you did not revise or adapt to show good faith, but decided to pivot to falsely classifying the discussion as just a matter of my opinion with no merit. Now we're finally circling back.
There are a number of necessary qualities missing in AI works to qualify as "art". Let's take photography, as an example. In photography, the camera captures the images for a human, but the "art" is the unique (original), intentional depiction of the scene that captures the artist's perspective. Art conveys the artist's thoughts to others. This is true of CGI as well. It is still the artist using their skills to provide a unique perspective in a digitized world.
AI works lack these qualities. It is impossible to create unique AI art - it isz at best, a collection of derivative parts. Sometimes art is intentionally derivative, yes, but that leads to the next point. AI art cannot carry intentionality that art can. It carries a distillation of intention, tokenizing and associating the intention back to its training set. It disconnects the prompt author from the output in a definitionally important way. It is randomized, not reproducible. It is an approximation of the prompter's thoughts, ideas, and emotions - not a translation. It cannot reflect the human experience in its output, just a statistical guess at them.
> saying AI images cannot be art is largely just a stated conclusion.
Yes, it's called a thesis. I have one, I've stated it, and I've supported it. You're welcome to contribute to the discussion