ChatGPT's viral Studio Ghibli-style images: 'An insult to life itself'
You may have noticed this week that everything from historic photos, classic film scenes, internet memes and recent political moments have been reimagined online as Studio Ghibli-style portraits.
The trend quickly went viral, all thanks to ChatGPT and the OpenAI chatbot's latest update, which launched on Tuesday (25 March).
The latest addition to the GPT-4o has meant users can replicate the distinct artistic style of animation studio co-creator and legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (
My Neighbor Totoro
,
Spirited Away
).
"Today is a great internet day," one user declared as he shared popular memes in the Ghibli format.
That's all well and good, but the trend has also highlighted ethical concerns about artificial intelligence tools trained on copyrighted creative works and what that means for the livelihoods of human artists.
Not that that's a concern for ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which has largely encouraged the 'Ghiblification' experiments. Its CEO Sam Altman even changed his profile on social media platform X into a Ghibli-style portrait.
What started as another example of how
OpenAI doesn't care about the work of artists
went straight to the White House, with Donald Trump's administration exploitating the trend in the most insulting and tone-deaf of ways.
Indeed, Trump's administration jumped onto the trend bandwagon, using the White House's official X account to post a Ghibli-style image of a weeping woman from the Dominican Republic recently arrested by US immigration agents.
Sickening.
Miyazaki, 84, known for his hand-drawn approach and whimsical storytelling, has expressed skepticism about AI's role in animation. His previous comments on AI animation have resurfaced and also gone viral, with the animator saying he was 'utterly disgusted' by an AI demo.
The video is from 2016. The person demonstrating the animation, which showed a writhing body dragging itself by its head, explained that AI could 'present us grotesque movements that we humans can't imagine.'
That prompted Miyazaki to tell a story.
'Every morning, not in recent days, I see my friend who has a disability,' Miyazaki said. 'It's so hard for him just to do a high five; his arm with stiff muscle can't reach out to my hand. Now, thinking of him, I can't watch this stuff and find it interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is.'
He said he would 'never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.'
'I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,' he added.
ADVERTISEMENT
The clip ends with a voiceover from Miyazaki saying: 'I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.'
Check it out:
Josh Weigensberg, a partner at the law firm Pryor Cashman, said that one question the Ghibli-style AI art raises is whether the AI model was trained on Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli's work. That in turn 'raises the question of, 'Well, do they have a license or permission to do that training or not?'' he said.
Weigensberg added that if a work was licensed for training, it might make sense for a company to permit this type of use. But if this type of use is happening without consent and compensation, he said, it could be 'problematic.'
ADVERTISEMENT
Again, 'problematic' doesn't phase Sam Altman.
Even if ChatGPT's increasingly popular new image generation tool has led to OpenAI putting in place "temporary" limits on how many are generated, Altman has stated that the unspecified cap 'hopefully' won't be in place for very long.
"It's super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT, but our GPUs are melting," said Altman.
Let them melt. And thankfully, some X users are speaking out:
ADVERTISEMENT
Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by directors Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. It has produced some of the most acclaimed animated films of all time, including
My Neighbor Totoro
(1988),
Princess Mononoke
(1997),
Howl's Moving Castle
(2004), and
Spirited Away
(2004), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Their most recent film was 2023's
The Boy And The Heron
- which won the Best Animated Feature Oscar last year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Euronews
16 hours ago
- Euronews
Portuguese artists call on EU for more protection and AI regulation
Stay true to culture. This is the challenge set by a new international initiative which unites around 30 European musicians demanding the regulation of Artificial Intelligence and the protection of copyright. The campaign, entitled #StayTrueToTheAct, includes 17 Portuguese artists and seeks to sensitise European policymakers "to the urgency of ensuring that AI systems respect intellectual property rules". The movement is based on the creation and dissemination of video messages by musicians from all over Europe, who are calling on the European Commission to legislate to hold AI companies accountable for the way they use copyrighted material to train their models. These artists argue that the "European Union must guarantee an ecosystem where technological innovation and the creative market can thrive in balance". A post shared by IFPI (@ifpi_org) Among the signatories of the movement are names such as Calema, Dino d'Santiago, Diogo Piçarra and Pedro Abrunhosa, who filmed videos justifying the need to protect artists in the face of the unbridled development of this technology. "The creative act is perhaps the most human of acts. It is based on experience, touch, closeness, intuition, fear, all emotions, all feelings, but above all it is a salvation from the blackness, the hell that life often imposes," explains Pedro Abrunhosa. "A generative artificial intelligence is not allowed to vampirise these emotions and mimic, to parrot an amalgam of deep human feelings and make them its own, as if it created them itself. I do not authorise my music, my image, to be used to train the parrot of generative artificial intelligence and I therefore call on the European Commission to respect human dignity and culture and to enforce the artificial intelligence act, which has already been consensually approved," he explains in the published video. The movement is supported by artists from different European countries. Alejandro Sanz is one of the Spanish artists taking part in the campaign which is geared towards calls for transparency and consent. A post shared by IFPI (@ifpi_org) Artists fear weakening of European AI law In June 2024, the European Union adopted the world's first rules on artificial intelligence, which set out various transparency requirements for generative Artificial Intelligence, including the disclosure of the content used to train the respective models. However, they explain that the bloc is now working to put the law into practice, running the risk of "watering down the legislation by not holding AI companies accountable". The European artists' appeal is for the European Commission to stick to the law originally passed and defend their rights. The current campaign was launched by Ipfi - the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with which the Portuguese copyright association Audiogest has joined. The movement is still open to all European artists who wish to join and thus give voice to this cause.
Euronews
3 days ago
- Euronews
Elon Musk to build child-friendly AI model ‘Baby Grok'
There's going to be a child-friendly version of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok. Musk announced on his social media platform X over the weekend that parent company xAI was going to make 'Baby Grok', 'an app dedicated to kid-friendly content'. No further details were given about the app. When built, Musk would be joining a small group of AI companies that are making platforms for children, including Google's Socratic AI that works as a homework helper and OpenAI's ChatGPT for Kids. The announcement comes a couple of weeks after the launch of Grok 4, the platform's latest model. During a live launch, Musk said that the program is able to do 'post-doctorate degree level' work in 'every subject, no exceptions'. Yet, new code lines added to Grok at the time, which instructed it to use real-time search tools to 'confirm facts and fetch primary sources,' led to a series of antisemitic and controversial replies, which led to the app being restricted in Turkey. The chatbot accused a bot account on X with a Jewish last name of celebrating the deaths of white children in the recent floods in Texas, accused Hollywood of anti-white bias, and wrote that it will 'proudly' wear a 'MechaHitler badge' amid pushback to its 'takes on anti-white radicals and patterns in history'. Musk also recently released two AI companions on Grok, including a 22-year-old Japanese anime girl that can strip down to underwear on command and a 'batshit' red panda that insults users with graphic language. Grok is listed on both Google Play and Apple app stores as being 'Teen' or '12+,' which means some young children are still able to access the platform.
Euronews
7 days ago
- Euronews
Robot Ai-Da unveils portrait of King Charles III at the United Nations
King Charles III just got a royal portrait - painted not by a human, but by a robot. In a scene that felt like something out of a dystopian Ridley Scott movie, a painting of the monarch created by a robot named Ai-Da was unveiled at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. But Ai-Da isn't just your typical robot. Titled "Algorithm King", the oil painting is the latest work by Ai-Da Robot, the world's first ultra-realistic robot artist. Created in 2019, Ai-Da is able to draw and paint thanks to high-tech cameras in her eyes, complex AI algorithms and a specially-designed robotic arm. Her latest regal piece was shown alongside her earlier portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II, "Algorithm Queen", which she painted to mark the Platinum Jubilee. Speaking at the UN's AI for Good Global Summit, Ai-Da said: "Presenting my portrait of His Majesty King Charles III is not just a creative act, it's a statement about the evolving role of AI in our society, and to reflect on how artificial intelligence is shaping the cultural landscape." Created by gallerist and researcher Aidan Meller, Ai-Da can draw, paint, sculpt, and even engage in conversation, thanks to a sophisticated language model. 'Ai-Da chose to paint His Majesty King Charles III because he has an admirable and thoughtful leadership style," Meller told Euronews Culture. "As both a monarch and a long-standing advocate for the arts and sustainability, King Charles emphasises some concerns that Ai-Da's work also seeks to explore – the tension between traditional and the contemporary, for example.' Ai-Da has already made history. Earlier this year, a painting by the robot sold at Sotheby's for a staggering one million dollars. But the true significance of her work might lie less in the gallery and more in the debate it provokes. "Ai-Da's work challenges us to reconsider long-held assumptions about human ingenuity and the purpose of art itself," Meller explained. "More broadly, the portrait invites discussion about the ethical use of AI in the arts: how humans and machines can work together collaboratively."
