I think you're both right to a degree? They are lens artifacts and we can't just remove them because we don't have the data of what's behind the spikes, as that

I think you're both right to a degree? They are lens artifacts and we can't just remove them because we don't have the data of what's behind the spikes, as that is what the sensor can see. We'd be filling them in with black or our best guess based on neighboring pixels, either way it wouldn't be what one would "really" see. Unless we composited images from another source, then that'd come closer to accurate.