All Art is Combinatorial and Pastiche

Tyler Cowen writes, in his inimitable way, that a weakness of AI-generated art is that it is combinatorial and pastiche:

AI creations tend toward the combinatorial and the pastiche, because they are based on previously existing databases of images, sounds and cultural creations. Therefore AI products might have trouble generating the kind of originality that leads to truly spectacular and intense levels of fandom.

Of course, this quote implies that human-created art is not combinatorial or pastiche. But I don't think that's true. All human artists are influenced by the earlier human artists to whom they have been exposed. Even something as revolutionary as Picasso's cubism was influenced by earlier painters like Cézanne and photographers.

Or, consider Bob Dylan: when he went electric, he did so because he was influenced by earlier blues guitarists who had already adopted the electric guitar.

René Girard would probably say that this is evidence of mimesis. I would say that this is evidence of humans being combinatorial and pastiche. So the question of what distinguishes AI-generated art from human-generated art must turn on something other than the former being combinatorial and pastiche.