Comment by michaelt
1 day ago
When it comes to fan art of Disney characters, the legal position is "Disney could sue you for that, but chooses not to as suing fans would be bad PR, don't do anything commercial with it though or they'll sue you for sure"
So - yes, as I understand things it can indeed be illegal even if a human does the learning.
If we're discussing ethics, copyright law is basically irrelevant. Copying the art from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would get you sued, but no sane person thinks it's unethical. Everyone involved in making it has almost certainly been dead for a while now. It's ethically no different from copying the original story like Disney did.