[sriku]

I'm willing to go a little further with recombination given that a good part of a traditional musician's education consists of studying and re-performing "standards" be they jazz, western classical or Indian classical (which is my background). A simple example is how pretty much every hero-soundig film background music smells of Also Sprach Zarathustra to me. I do think that musician's stand as much on the shoulders of giants as scientists do .. but sometimes don't quite acknowledge that explicitly in their works.

I think this topic will keep reverting to the point you raise - "meaningful art". As long as the "meaning" is a construct in a human brain that we're looking for, we have little to say about AI and it's capabilities (like Joshua Bell's hardly-noticed playing of Bach classics at New York's subway station as opposed to when he's performing at a concert hall).

.. (edit) and I do think that active listening is itself a creative act.