[exodust]

> as long as the aliens didn't use the work of human musicians.

Don't you mean "inspired by" the work of human musicians? It's a fine line between inspiration and training.

If AI listens to human music in order to produce similar music, isn't that similar to human musicians listening to other music, then setting a goal to do their own take?

Musicians who use four-on-the-floor or familiar arrangements of verse-chorus-verse, and lyrics about love and loss, are aiming to fit into an existing pop music market. Without "training data" from other music already in the market, do you honestly believe those musicians would have created the music they did? Of course not, so why can't the Aliens/AI listen/train on our music and make their own version which sounds similar in order to fit the market?