I'm certainly no expert on copyright law, but my understanding is that its purpose is to protect the financial interests of certain creators from the progress of technology (e.g. copy paste). I've heard arguments that removing copyright would lead to less creativity or reduced quantity or quality of work, but I'm personally a bit skeptical (probably for the same reasons as you - I think people have a natural desire to create). Even in terms of financials, I would speculate that an employment/patronage model would become more widespread.
I think there's something to be said about the benefits of having freely available knowledge, music, and art for common consumption. When I was a child in high school (or well, always lol), my parents couldn't afford a lot of material I needed or wanted for studying (especially for standardized testing, SAT and AP tests) and most of the books in my local library either did not exist or were outdated. But when I discovered that much of this information could be found online, it really changed my world and made success in life feel attainable to me. I consider myself quite wealthy now, but I don't think I would have been able to escape poverty if all this information was paywalled from me. Maybe others would argue the writers are not being compensated for their efforts, but if there are other people in the world in the same position as past me who could positively benefit from it, I think that's a better world to live in, personally.
Incidentally, the release of StableDiffusion has actually inspired me to draw a little. Not sure why, but I find it inspiring being able to iterate on a prompt and produce something of quality that I can try to replicate on my own. Even if I fail, I still have something to appreciate that maps fairly well to the concept in my head.
My hope is that these technologies might lead to a change in our financial system (I think UBI would be a good idea), but I suppose we'll see where everything ends up. I think there's likely going to be a lot of pain in the short-term (especially since there are those who don't want to adapt), but hopefully everyone will positively benefit in the long-term.