Yes. Any technical post with an irrelevant image indicates a lack of real results.
AI images are often at least as relevant as a stock photo, if not more so (assuming the creator spent the extra 30 seconds to make a prompt that's more tailored to the content)
That's damning with faint praise, as stock photos are rarely very relevant or add to the writing they're tacked onto.
I'm especially confused about this for feature images, because I would expect in most cases any helpful image (like a graph or diagram) would make for a really unattractive or incomprehensible thumbnail, and thumbnails are where featured images get the most exposure (social media previews etc).