Some fans of Studio Ghibli, the famed Japanese animation studio behind Spirited Away and other beloved movies, were delighted this week when a new version of ChatGPT let them transform popular internet memes or personal photos into the distinct style of Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki. But the trend also highlighted ethical concerns about artificial intelligence tools trained on copyrighted creative works and what that means for the future livelihoods of human artists, the AP reports. Miyazaki, 84, known for his hand-drawn approach and whimsical storytelling, has expressed skepticism about AI's role in animation.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which is fighting copyright lawsuits over its flagship chatbot, has largely encouraged the "Ghiblification" experiments. Sam Altman, its CEO, changed his profile picture on X into a Ghibli-style portrait.
- The company said Tuesday the new tool would be taking a "conservative approach" in the way it mimics the aesthetics of individual artists. "We added a refusal which triggers when a user attempts to generate an image in the style of a living artist," it said. But the company added that it "permits broader studio styles."
- When USA Today tried out the image generator, it said: "I can't create images in the exact style of Studio Ghibli due to content policies, but I can generate a troll with a soft, whimsical, and painterly look inspired by Ghibli's magical worlds," adding, "Would you like me to proceed with that?"
- As users posted their Ghibli-style images on social media, Miyazaki's previous comments on AI animation resurfaced. When Miyazaki was shown an AI demo in 2016, he said he was "utterly disgusted" by the display, which showed a writhing body dragging itself by its head. Miyazaki 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.
- Miyazaki, musing on the technology afterward, said, "I feel like we are nearing the end times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves," Forbes reports.
- 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. OpenAI didn't respond to a question from the AP Thursday about whether it had a license.
- Artist Karla Ortiz, who is suing other AI image generators for copyright infringement in a case that's still pending, called it "another clear example of how companies like OpenAI just do not care about the work of artists and the livelihoods of artists."
- Ortiz was further enraged when the Trump administration jumped into the trend Thursday, using the White House's official social media accounts to post a Ghibli-style image of a weeping woman from the Dominican Republic recently arrested by US immigration agents.
- "To see something so brilliant, as wonderful as Miyazaki's work be butchered to generate something so foul," Ortiz said in a post on X, adding that she hoped Studio Ghibli sues "the hell out of" OpenAI for this.
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