Except that’s not really what copyright is for — Isn’t the whole point to incentivise the creation and growth of this “space” as you call it? Whatever we might think about the benefits or inevitability of AI, it’s clearly ALSO a threat to precisely that thing you’re saying is important, right?

You're right that the original rationale for copyright was the advancement of learning. Of course, human learning had advanced reasonably well in the Renaissance without copyright law, and it continued to advance in the 18 and 19c with much, much shorter copyright terms than now exist. +

Interesting debate. Imagine national libraries and archives decide their metadata is private and copyrighted and can be sold for training purposes to one AI firm exclusively. There would be uproar (though it reminds me of selling off digital rights to images of physical records)