A photocopier is extremely different because the user is providing the copyrighted material. In the AI case, it is much more like writing a Google search for the copyrighted material. If I ask an artist to draw a cartoon of Mickey Mouse in violation of copyright, the artist is in violation of copyright if they produce said drawing and give it to me. Are we to give special rights to AI that human artists don't enjoy?
When I've heard people talking about using copyright to defend against AI, they've always talked about it in the sense that their works being used to train the AI is where the copyright violation takes place.
That stance is clearly not supported by copyright law.
If, however, we're talking about copyright violations applying to the distribution of works generated by AI, that's an entirely different conversation. It's still not really clear-cut, but there are ways that could be in violation of copyright law.
It isn't the case that AI is being treated differently, though. The issues would be the same if a human were doing all of this stuff.
