There's no "real thing". All photos are processed, through the lens, by the software on the device, and by the photographers' workflows. When you shoot JPG, there's already a lot of processing that happens, and when you shoot RAW, you need to process that yourself from a dull, flat image.

Photographers rarely post un-processed images. Even before all of that, settings are chosen which alter the exposure, depth of field, focus point, color temperature of the image which alter the "real thing". It's common to think "editing" a photo is some cheating magic, but it should be considered the norm, and how people share their vision of what they want it to look like.

The AI can just automate a lot of the workflow or need to buy extra equipment, still up the human to decide how they want the image to come out.