Fans of Studio Ghibli were thrilled this week when a new version of ChatGPT allowed them to transform popular internet memes or personal photos into the distinctive style of Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki. However, this trend raised ethical concerns about artificial intelligence tools being trained on copyrighted creative works and its implications for the future livelihoods of human artists. Miyazaki, known for his hand-drawn approach and whimsical storytelling, has expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation.
Janu Lingeswaran, an entrepreneur from Germany, shared his excitement after using ChatGPT to turn a photo of his cat into a Ghibli-style anime image. Others also achieved similar results with iconic images and memes. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, encouraged these “Ghiblification” experiments, but stated that the tool takes a conservative approach in mimicking the aesthetics of individual artists.
While Studio Ghibli has not commented on this trend, Miyazaki’s past remarks on AI animation have resurfaced. In a documentary, Miyazaki expressed disgust at an AI demo showing grotesque movements, stating that he would never incorporate such technology into his work as he finds it an insult to life itself.
According to Pryor Cashman, a question raised by the Ghibli-style AI art is whether the AI model was trained on the works of Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli. This, in turn, brings up the issue of whether there was proper licensing or permission for this training. OpenAI did not respond to a query on Thursday regarding the licensing aspect.
Weigensberg noted that if a work was licensed for training, it could be reasonable for a company to allow this type of usage. However, if this usage is occurring without consent and compensation, he stated that it could pose problems. There is a general principle, Weigensberg explained, that “style” is not subject to copyright. However, he added that sometimes when people refer to “style,” they are actually talking about specific, identifiable elements of a piece of art.
Artist Karla Ortiz, who is suing other AI image generators for copyright infringement, highlighted the concern that companies like OpenAI may not value the efforts of artists. She criticized the use of Ghibli’s branding and reputation to promote OpenAI products, calling it exploitative and insulting.
The report was provided by O’Brien from Providence, Rhode Island. The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that grants OpenAI access to a portion of AP’s text archives.
