I had failed to challenge the base assumptions. All the talk of #GenAI had led me to adopt that very language while trying to critique it. There is the reality that the prompt from the user is necessary, but all of the creativity is explicitly encoded into the dataset. I suppose then the generative aspect more so derives from the trade secrets of dataset creation.
Thank you. This is where I am trying to think out loud and work on refining my own ideas and how to communicate them.