That's a fun framing. Let me try using it to define art.

Art is an abstract way of manipulating aesthetics so that the person feels or thinks a thing.

Doesn't sound very elusive nor wrong to me, while remaining remarkably similar to your coding definition.

> while asking questions about what it means to be human

I'd argue that's more Philosophy's territory. Art only really goes there to the extent coding does with creativity, which is to say

> the machine does a thing

to the extent a programmer has to first invent this thing. It's a bit like saying my body is a machine that exists to consume water and expel piss. It's not wrong, just you know, proportions and timing.

This isn't to say I classify coding and art as the same thing either. I think one can even say that it is because art speaks to the person while code speaks to the machine, that people are so much more uppity about it. Doesn't really hit the same as the way you framed this though, does it?