The complaint the photographer is making is that it’s an actual image where a small portion is made or changed with AI.

They list expanding the edges of the image to change the aspect ratio and removing flaws, unwanted objects etc.

Removing flaws and objects at least is a task that predates computers - people changed the actual negatives, and tools to do it have improved that a computer can basically do it all for you.

I think people should just say how they modified the image - AI or not - since airbrushed skin, artificial slimming, and such have been common complaints before AI manipulation, and AI just makes those same problematic things easier.