ChatGPT's viral Studio Ghibli-style images highlight AI copyright concerns
Source: AP
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. Miyazaki, 84, known for his hand-drawn approach and whimsical storytelling, has expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation.
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ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which is fighting copyright lawsuits over its flagship chatbot, has largely encouraged the “Ghiblification” experiments and its CEO Sam Altman changed his profile on social media platform X into a Ghibli-style portrait. In a technical paper posted Tuesday, the company had said the new tool would be taking a “conservative approach” in the way it mimics the aesthetics of individual artists.
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Ortiz was further enraged when President Donald Trump’s administration jumped into the meme trend Thursday, using the White House’s official X account to post a Ghibli-style image of a weeping woman from the Dominican Republic recently arrested by U.S. immigration agentsp. The White House and OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on how the image was made.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/studio-ghibli-chatgpt-images-hayao-miyazaki-openai-0f4cb487ec3042dd5b43ad47879b91f4
What OpenAI has done is a giant FU to Hayao Miyazaki for opposing AI art...and the Trump White House capped it with "a Ghibli-style image of a weeping woman from the Dominican Republic recently arrested by U.S. immigration agents."
And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who apparently is no more truly ethical than Elon Musk is, knows he has Trump's support for this ripoff of artists.
From a tech specialist and copyright defender on Bluesky who's followed by journalist Gil Duran and AI expert and critic Gary Marcus, and whose post on this was recommended by copyright expert Neil Turkewitz:
https://tante.cc/2025/03/28/vulgar-display-of-power/
It is a display of power: You as an artist, an animator, an illustrator, a writer, any creative person are powerless. We will take what we want and do what we want. Because we can.
Because we can. This is the idea of might makes right. The banner that every totalitarian and fascist government rallied under. OpenAI luckily is no government but their ideas, their thinking has influenced many current governments all over the planet. “If we are not allowed to take everything we want without payment and against people’s will, we will never create the machine god to solve all our problems.”
OpenAI’s move is an attempt to see what the reaction to them explicitly, willingly, gleefully breaching another boundary, acting against the explicit and known will of the people they use their machines on. And many in the public seem to eat it up, turning their holiday pics into “Ghibli-style” images.
Btw, people who are REAL fans of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki will NOT participate in this despicable ripoff that shows contempt for his work and for his having weighed in against AI art.
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