> AI arguably accomplishes this using some form of abstraction though does it not?

It's unabstractable for people, because the most abstract model that works still has far too many variables for our puny brains.

> artists routinely engage in various forms of unusual abstraction

Abstraction in art is just another, unrelated meaning of the word. Like execution of a program vs execution of a person. You could argue executing the journalist for his opinions isn't bad, because execution of mspaint.exe is perfectly fine, but it won't get you far :)

> It's unabstractable for people, because the most abstract model that works still has far too many variables for our puny brains.

Abstraction doesn't have to be perfect, just as "logic" doesn't have to be.

> Abstraction in art is just another, unrelated meaning of the word.

Speaking of art: have you seen the movie The Matrix? It's rather relevant here.