If you do not license the "bits and pieces" then the courts will find you in violation of their copyrights. Pretending AI is different is bizarre out-of-touch "but I'm so special" solipsism.
I believe you are wrong there. Transformative art requires no licensing as long as it falls under fair use.
I can quote a book in my article without licensing the quote from the author. I can clip eyebrows off of copyrighted magazine portraits and assemble them into a eyebrow version of some famous art piece and never have to license a thing. I can take screenshots of copyrighted YouTube videos and assemble a "shirts of YouTubers" that I lasso tool'd and collaged together and create an entirely new copyrighted work without having to license a thing. I can take a photo of a street which contains an art gallery and copyrighted art can appear in my photo without having to license anything from the artist. Fair use would cover taking 1 out of 1 million pixels and assembling it into a new image if a human were to perform that action.
