[onion2k]

Artists regularly take inspiration from closely studying other artists, producing works from them which is often similar or the same style

ML is only superficially using the same process. Behind the scenes the computer is not being 'inspired'; it's using the art from other people, along with metadata about it, as a data source to derive a new image using math. That isn't the same as seeing someone else's picture and using it for inspiration.

[bigB]

I do see your point on this, though not sure if you can use that differentiation between human inspiration and what a computer is doing, we take a mental image and interpretation could be seen as metadata. Just because the mechanics are different doesn't mean its not similar in process. I guess you could say the emotion is not there, but is that enough to differentiate ? Still a good point though , adds more questions to the mix

[IYasha]

I wanted to say that the human still commands the genertor to make a form of art using prompt. But then I've got a shivering feeling that someone might connect generator (of prompts) to another generator to another... and then close the loop.

Anyway, I've always said (and keep saying) that art is what (visibly) distinguishes humans from animals. And machines.

[AndrewDucker]

How is that different from the human brain using its internal model of the picture, plus information about it, to derive new images?

[starbugs]

One thing would be that humans are (usually) not able to reproduce the work of others to the same degree of accuracy and speed as ML models.

[IYasha]

And also here's the distinction between man labor and machine calculations come into play.