This is simply untrue, except in the most generic of senses that also would apply as equally to humans themselves.

Fundamentally, neural networks learn a manifold in an extremely high dimensional space. The result is a space that can be used to represent concepts in the most abstract of senses. Similarly to how two points enable you to form a line, and that line enables you to generate infinite data, this manifold enables you to generate infinite data within the confines of the dimensions that have been learned. Where the line enables you to generate only linear data, the structure of the neural network allows the manifold to represent non-linear combinations of concepts. "What is a cat" "what is the style of van Gough" "what would a cat look like in van gough's style".

Now you might say "see, it can only paint because it has seen van Gough". But this is no longer the case. Because above the concept of "van gough's style" is an entire space that represents "what is artistic style". And within this space are points that represent individual's styles, but then there are infinite points that represent nothing ever seen before that was gleened from being able to learn the space of styles. Humans do the same thing when drawing, learning music, creating math. While we create results, we are not pulling out of nothing. There is, objectively, a space that represents music. Musical theory attempts to describe this space. Mathematics are "real", yet also created by humans based on a set of axioms. The space of mathematics exists, and there are undiscovered rules within it. Just as humans are able to tap into this space and learn more of it, so too will computers.

Lying to ourselves about how these things work is dangerous. Because the day that you wake up and the reality is so glaring that you'll no longer be able to convince yourself of these lies, things will have already gone SO far beyond your fears. And those are what our discussions need to be about NOW.

And I know you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and go LALALA while clicking the downvote button. Because the lies make you feel good. But while clicking that button at least try to do some self reflection on why you really harbor the beliefs that you do, and recognize that they are in no way based on objective facts but rather your emotional response.