The comparison between photography and AI generated images falls flat on its face when you think about it.

A camera requires not only human interaction, but going some place, setting up and having to process the image after the fact.

Contrast that with an AI farm constantly generating and squeezing out copyrightable material while scraping the web for any human made work it can emulate.

In the end what it will mean is that certain companies will be fuzzing the hell out of the copyright system to gain as much intellectual property as possible while diminishing the creative possibility of human beings.

It is in effect just a way to make companies richer and remove creative jobs from the market. Anybody who doesn't see that is naive.

BUT I think that in cases of that image you should be able to apply for copyright. But just automatically getting it, as is the law in many countries? No. That's a really bad idea.