How is it fundamentally different?

AIs can learn, it's totally possible to setup one that will remember what you've said in future answers. The fact that they don't have their own agency is irrelevant. They still learn the same way we do, by looking at a ton of examples, and then trying and receiving feedback from trainers.

Lets say you record yourself walking in a mall, and the mall has copyrighted music playing in the background. Do you need to pay copyright to make that recording? No. You would only need to pay copyright if you then played the video in a commercial context.

So the recording, processing, and storing of the copyright material does not require a license. Only the playback. Which in the case of AI doesn't happen, they don't produce exact copies of copyright material because the exact copyrighted data isn't actually stored inside them. They may be similar in nature, but revealing the plot of a book you read to others is not considered a copyright infringement.