“A generative tool is the same as paint” is only a useful analogy if the paint creates its own canvas and then arranges itself on it, though. A dog or cat getting paint on a surface is doing something else entirely.
My own background is in fine arts, where both the artist having an intent is assumed, but also the intention is frequently seen as rather suspect as a criteria for something being art. In the fine art context, work functions as art, and work is contextualized as art, either/both of which are criteria for something being considered art. The AI can’t really do any of those things, of course. A programmer can set up a generative system with those things in mind, however, making the generative itself system art (and the output of that system, at best, merely the residue, the byproduct, of the art process, but which can be commodified and treated similarly to art on a commercial level).
