If someone asks me to make/paint/draw a picture of a 'frog holding an umbrella under a rainbow', I would be basing my new work on all the 'art' and images that I have seen in the past. I might even search for related content on the internet for inspiration!
So long as I don't copy a previous, copyrighted image 'too much' (this is fuzzy and maybe should be quantified legally in our bright, digital future), I can claim copyright on the new image.
Since, so far, non-human things are not allowed to hold copyright, a human can claim copyright over works created by non-human things, that the human owns or controls. It's even easier to reason about if the human and non-human thing 'collaborate' on the final creative product. So, if I fiddle around with my inputs (prompts) into Super Diffusion Power Plus Gold Edition, then we (the software and I) collaborated. And I own the output that I chose (curated) as the best one.
So long as I don't copy a previous, copyrighted image 'too much' (this is fuzzy and maybe should be quantified legally in our bright, digital future), I can claim copyright on the new image.
Since, so far, non-human things are not allowed to hold copyright, a human can claim copyright over works created by non-human things, that the human owns or controls. It's even easier to reason about if the human and non-human thing 'collaborate' on the final creative product. So, if I fiddle around with my inputs (prompts) into Super Diffusion Power Plus Gold Edition, then we (the software and I) collaborated. And I own the output that I chose (curated) as the best one.