I was using the Builder (Backend UI).
Indeed I can see now why this is, after reading the code you sent, I see a difference.
The builder produces a code where the field query args array is a string:
'query_args' => [
'post__not_in' => 'array( 773 )',
],
Instead, it should be
'query_args' => [
'post__not_in' => array( 773 ),
],
So when using the AIO Builder, it will not register arrays correctly, it always seems to assume string as input, and produce string in the arg, which might even produce issues when the arg expects a numeric value.
Perhaps this can be fixed in the builder, it would save time to edit code/save/reedit code etc