On what a photograph is (And why a GAI image is not a photo)

Can photographic images be classified as "pictorial" images in the strict sense? Has the advent of digital technologies really changed the nature of photographic images? The first of these questions arose with the birth of photography, the second in recent times, but both now seem to encompass almost the entire scope of photographic aesthetics. The definition of "photography" I will present, based on computational theories of vision, aims to propose a solution to both. Furthermore, as a corollary, it aims to provide reasons to deny that so-called "synthographic" images should be considered genuine photographs. I will argue, instead, that they constitute a new artistic genre to be placed among the digital arts (specifically, within "prompt art") and therefore to be approached with some of the methodologies specific to experimental philosophy (of aesthetics).