Am I wrong, though? Artists who left their names in history did so because they successfully created art suitable for the algorithms of their time.

I don't actually know what you mean by "algorithm" in this context. Do you mean it as the unique constraints that define a particular kind of art?

An algorithm is an algorithm. A problem to be solved, whether by human hands or computers.

In this case, art that succeeds is whatever art is in demand from the people at the time and which the process involved best reflects the ultimate valuation of that art. It's a problem to be solved, aka an algorithm.

Just like how the printing press and the typewriter democratized all forms of writing, where before writing was the sole domain of trained scribes and clerics (hence the terms "inscribing", "clerical error", etc.), so too will "AI" democratize whatever art forms it can satisfactorily produce.

If "AI" ends up replacing artists and creators wholesale, that means the art products thereof were not particularly valuable in the first place. A prominent example would be tabloid and newspaper articles, which have actually been written by "AI"s for quite a long while now.

Is any of this scary? Unless you have money or fame to lose in the shifting sands of time, no it is not. If you are such a person, well you certainly have my sympathy (unless you're a journalist; that occupation is a cancer upon society), but time waits for absolutely noone.

Impressionism, cubism, neoclassical art, these are all the "algorithms" of the time, people made art like that, otherwise they were shunned (at least, until society caught up to their artistic style, like Van Gogh).

So yes, you mean the unique constraints that define a particular kind of art. But that's not really the same thing as an algorithm.

You can certainly come up with algorithms that can result in stuff that conforms to the given restraints, but within the set of those restraints is a large amount of creativity that is no more amenable to algorithmic computation than any other creativity.

You're right if we simplify all of human culture as just a mere algorithm. Frankly I think that view is disgusting.

Human brains work on algorithms. There is nothing special about humanity on a physical level, we are all simply biological machines. It's not "disgusting," it's the realistic view of humanity.