The internet has become a Studio Ghibli-inspired playground.
Admirers of the Japanese animation studio are using a new update from ChatGPT to create portraits and memes inspired by the distinct artistic style popularized by filmmaker and studio co-creator Hayao Miyazaki.
The trend emerged within a day of OpenAI’s introducing new native image-generation capabilities Tuesday within GPT-4o, the latest version of ChatGPT. Users who pay for the premium tiers, which start at $20 a month, are able to upload any images into the system and asked the tool to transform them “into the style of Studio Ghibli.” Users can also use the tool with Sora, ChatGPT’s text-to-video AI model.
Some of the most shared images posted to social media Wednesday re-created political events in U.S. history, including President Donald Trump’s Feb. 28 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Others transformed popular memes, including a recent one referring to fitness influencer Ashton Hall’s morning routine and the decade-old Distracted Boyfriend meme.
But many people simply used it to make their favorite photos with their family members, friends and pets look as if they came out of a Ghibli film.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also joined in on the trend, changing his X profile picture into the same Studio Ghibli style.
ChatGPT released the feature amid continued concerns from artists about the infiltration of generative artificial intelligence technology into every artistic medium, including images, voices and music.
At the end of 2023, a widely circulated list revealed the names of thousands of artists whose work was used without consent to train the popular AI art generator Midjourney. Last year, more than 11,000 creatives signed an open letter condemning the use of human art to train AI without permission.
And last month, thousands of artists similarly signed an open letter urging Christie’s New York gallery to scrap its auction of AI art.
“Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license,” the letter said. “These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them.”
While many social media users were excited to use the new AI tool, others lamented that its use diminishes the work of Miyazaki.
Some people referred to the reimagined art as AI slop, a term used to describe the outlandish, seemingly AI-generated images that often dominate social media feeds. Others called the images “soulless.”
“What we’ve seen today is the very definition of AI slop,” an X user wrote. “Knock-off Ghibli abundance flooding our feeds. Art reduced ‘content’. Unique design becomes memetic generation. Zero creativity.”
OpenAI, like many of its competitors, does not reveal the specific data used to train its models. But the accuracy of its Studio Ghibli impressions has also re-raised some users’ questions about whether it has scraped the studio’s works without permission.
Neither company immediately responded to requests for comment.
OpenAI — which has been sued by several news outlets, authors and visual artists who allege copyright infringement — asked the U.S. government this month to make it easier for AI companies to learn from copyrighted material, citing a need to “strengthen America’s lead” globally in advancing the technology.
The company claims its latest image generation tool particularly excels at closely following a user’s prompts, using context from the chat and accurately rendering text — which AI image generators have previously been notoriously inept at.
“These capabilities make it easier to create exactly the image you envision, helping you communicate more effectively through visuals and advancing image generation into a practical tool with precision and power,” the company wrote in an announcement on its blog Tuesday.
Miyazaki, a legendary animator, previously called AI-generated art “an insult to life itself.”
“Whoever made it gives no thought to pain. It’s very unpleasant,” he said during an AI demonstration in 2016, according to clip of the moment that circulated across social media on Wednesday. “You can make horrible things if you want, but I want nothing to do with it.”
