This sums it up perfectly in my mind, the analogy is extremely apt IMHO. As a musician I find it impossible to spontaneously produce melodies, rhythms, etc, tha

This sums it up perfectly in my mind, the analogy is extremely apt IMHO. As a musician I find it impossible to spontaneously produce melodies, rhythms, etc, that aren't heavily influenced by what I've listened to - perfectly analogous to how AI generated art is heavily influenced by the billions of training images it's ingested. The difficulty in composing is finding a way to transform, combine, and synthesize the influences into something new. I have been approaching generative AI in the same way and can't help but some of the fears are overblown. It takes work to get coherent results. If your own work is incoherent or wholly derivative, your AI outputs will also be. If your work isn't incoherent or highly derivative, then I'd argue you've already done a major part (if not most) of the creative work in your mind - the AI is just another tool to realize it which empowers human artists to be creative like never before. EDIT: Okay, now I'm shocked to see your comment grayed out all the way at the bottom. Interesting times we live in.