When Openai debuted its image generation feature last week with ChatGPT, social media exploded when it realized it could create images generated by AI that look like something from an animated film from Studio Ghibli. Fans have hoped that Studio Ghibli mastermind Miyazaki Hayo would stand up, but the 84-year-old animator is silent. However, on Ghibli’s fan Subreddit, fans have enforced a long-standing ban on AI art.
“I just noticed here 12 different ‘Ban Ai Now’ posts seemingly spurred by the influx of AI Ghibli art on other sites,” the moderator who posted last week on Ghibli Subreddit. “We don’t allow AI art. We basically don’t allow it since it became an object.”
These fans haven’t seen AI-generated copies as homage to iconic artists. Rather, these generator AI models are trained with copyrighted images of artists like Miyazaki.
This issue has an impact on other creators and writers as well. The New York Times and other publishers sued Openai, claiming that they used copyrighted material to train the model without payment or consent. Similar complaints have been filed against Meta and the Mid Journey.
The Ghibli situation hit a particularly strong nerve among fans as studio mastermind Miyazaki Hay speaks up about his hatred for the AI-generated artwork.
“I think it’s interesting because you can’t see anything like this,” Miyazaki said in a 2016 documentary footage that he was shown an AI-generated 3D animation. “Everyone who creates something like this doesn’t know what the pain is. I’m totally tired.”
People are also generating portraits in the style of Pixar films and illustrations of Dr. Seuss. Even the White House X account posted Ghibli-style images and crudely chuckled crying women while being handcuffed to ice.
As images spread across the internet, the legendary 84-year-old animator fans resurfaced his commentary to discourage others from imitating his work, but the damage had already been done. Of course, not all of these are Ghibli-style images, but the popularity of these images has expanded the capabilities of AI companies.
Openai’s Brad LightCap, which oversees the company’s day-to-day operations, said the new ChatGPT feature has generated over 700 million images with over 130 million users.
“The range of visual creativity was very exciting,” writes Lightcap.