"Hopefully this development will be rapid, so that AI art and artists can differentiate themselves in a meaningful way and stop leaning quite so transparently on previous human artwork—i.e., move beyond what you brilliantly describe as human users helping the AI do its job."

That is the key point right there, James. Very well said. Also, I'm sure this too will happen with music. The main difference, IMO, is that visual art is more intuitive to create and judge.