With its new 4o update, ChatGPT now boasts enhanced image generation, allowing it to more effectively replicate artistic styles. CEO Sam Altman unveiled this upgrade on March 26th.
The enhanced image generation has significant implications for creators, with smaller artists particularly affected. However, after Altman shared an image in the style of Hayo Miyazaki, Twitter soon became flooded with Studio Ghibli-style AI artwork.
Users were thrilled to use the tool to create Ghibli-style self-portraits, memes, and pictures of their pets. One day later, on March 27, OpenAI founder Sam Altman posted on X that Chat-GPT’s GPUs were “melting” from overuse.
Given the update’s popularity, it wasn’t long before things started getting weird. Users started generating Ghibli art of events like 9/11. The IDF got involved. The official White House Instagram account even posted a Ghibli-fied picture of a deportation.
Users React To Studio Ghibli AI Art
Unsurprisingly, this new trend has sparked a lot of backlash. “Do people not feel a deep visceral sense of shame using AI to generate Studio Ghibli art?” one X user wrote. “How does that not make you feel bad & empty inside?”
“The Studio Ghibli prompting is low key depressing,” another added. “If you can’t currently understand why, you will eventually.”
While a third noted: “The fact studio Ghibli is making $0 out of this while http://open.ai is raking in the billions after literally stealing their iconic art style is truly f’ed.”
The popular animation commentary account Animated Antic summed up the issue best for many Studio Ghibli fans.
What Does Hayo Miyazaki Think About AI?
The most notable criticism comes from Miyazaki himself. In a 2016 documentary, he was shown an AI-generated animation of a zombie writhing on the floor, with the developer saying that AI helps to generate “grotesque movements that we humans can’t imagine.”
In response, Miyazaki said: “Every morning, not in recent days, I see my friend who has a disability,” he 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.”
Miyazaki went on to add: “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted… I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”
