I think samplers are still clearly tools. You are still as a human performing with the sampler or at the very least manually arranging with it. If you gave somebody else the same sample, they would produce a different result.
Whereas AI (if we ignore RNG for a moment) will produce the same output from the same prompt. It's not a tool, it's a magic box that spits out a finished product with no human effort outside of the prompt.
Oracles are things that give you free stuff if you've been a good boy and respected the oracle's rituals.