Honestly I don't know. Is the skill level of a photographer? I'd say the skill ceiling is just higher than the oatmeal thinks

Those two statements aren’t synonymous at all, but also, yes.

Everything that you do as part of a process to create non-AI art, as soon as there is a digital component (even if the digital component isn’t in the end product), can be done as part of a process involving AI art. The only difference is that non-AI art doesn’t have the flexibility of using the tools available to AI artists.

If anything, the skill floor is lower for AI art, because you can much more easily churn out something that looks technically good at a glance with a single prompt, but the ceiling is higher, because you literally have more skills available to combine when creating your finished product.

(This of course assumes that you consider any art created with GenAI art in the process to be GenAI art, regardless of what else was involved, but most people with a hardline stance that creating GenAI art takes no skill would agree with that statement.)