Does this article imply there are circumstances where a spreadsheet is a cat? What a poor example of technical writing.
The algorithm/workers are not really “looking” at a picture of a cat, they are analysing and looking for patterns in the data that defines the picture of the cat.
If I play you a song on Spotify and say, "Is this a saxophone?", you wouldn't say, "No, it's a iPhone running Spotify."
If a policeman holds up a photograph of a person and says, "Is this the person who attacked you?", the victim doesn't say, "No, it's an 8 by 10 glossy print."