Artists are furious after several accounts on social media jumped on Ghibli’s latest trend, raising concerns about ethics and copyright protection for art. Metaphorically speaking, AI tools like DALL-E (and ChatGPT) make people feel ‘almost like gods’. “One just has to give a signal,” was what Dr Eduardo Navas, who researches AI models at Pennsylvania State University in the US, said in 2023. Fast forward to 2025, and AI is more powerful than ever.The latest ChatGPT update enables users to convert any of their photos into specific art styles – specifically in the style of the famous Japan-based animation studio, Studio Ghibli.After its release this week, Ghibli-style AI ‘art’ took over the internet. Popular memes, personal photos, and whatever people could get their hands on were all transformed into their ‘Ghibli-fied’ versions.However, artists and creatives everywhere are raising concerns over the ethical and legal consequences of such AI-generated posts.Studio Ghibli is renowned for its distinctive art and animation, shaped by many of Japan’s most revered art directors, including Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Kitaro Kosaka and many more.My Neighbour Totoro. Spirited Away. Princess Mononoke. The Wind Rises. Kiki’s Delivery Service. Howl’s Moving Castle. Grave of the Fireflies. These are just a fraction of Studio Ghibli’s critically acclaimed animated film catalogue.And now ChatGPT’s founding company, OpenAI, is openly encouraging these new experiments in ‘Ghibli-fication’. Its CEO, Sam Altman, has even changed his profile picture on X to a Ghibli-style ‘portrait’. There were official posts from the White House and even MyGovIndia featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi.In the release notes for the latest version of ChatGPT, the company has stated that the artificial intelligence model will take a ‘conservative approach’ to mimicking different art styles. However, this does not reflect reality. One only has to go online and be greeted with ‘images’ dominating social media that mimic the art style conspicuously, sampling lots of original content from Studio Ghibli films and paintings. And since Sam Altman wants the US government to train AI to ‘learn’ from copyrighted material by conveniently changing the ‘fair use’ guidelines, we can all guess how little respect he has for intellectual property rights.Those in the art community that THE WEEK spoke to are unanimous on the issue: the difference between creating your own art – even art inspired by other artists – and an AI ‘generated’ image created by a machine by copying from a library of artists is not a fine line; it is a deep chasm – where true creativity dies. Simply put, AI ‘generated’ images are not art, say animators and artists alike.Mumbai-based artist Jugal Chudasama points out the ethical violations in the process. “These AI models are trained without the consent of the intellectual property (IP) owner,” says Chudasama. Moreover, these models would not exist if humans had not created the art in the first place.“It’s not just Ghibli art; they have also trained these models on countless individual artists – who cannot afford to take it to court,” says Studio Jog’s founder. Of course, there is growing opposition from AI ‘evangelists’ who agree with Altman – that they need AI to be ‘trained’ on original content created by artists in order to ‘develop the technology’.”New technology has always been difficult to introduce. Take the digital camera, for example. Traditional photographers thought it would make photography too easy and therefore less meaningful. But digital photographers also have to get up and physically go to places, experience life, so they can take photos,” explains the artist. “Even after clicking photos, there is a process to make them look good.””Take charcoal and pencil, for example. The invention of the pencil did not completely eliminate the process of writing or drawing. You still needed the same skills; it’s just that now your hands are cleaner – that was the speciality,” says Chudasama.In fact, the same applies to the latest wave of digital art. It still relies on human skills to draw and sketch. However, AI tools simply take a text prompt and a photo and ‘generate’ an image using data scraped from art created by other artists.”They steal our work by sampling the images we have created after years of practice,” said another artist, who did not wish to be named.Chennai-based filmmaker Ashwath Nair is vocal about his opinion of Ghibli’s latest trend. “Morally, I think it spits in the face of what the studio (Studio Ghibli) is doing,” says Nair. “There are countless artists who have also put in years of hard work to create classic films like Princess Mononoke.” Literary reworking by artists.Talking on this topic, Shreya Singha, a renowned lawyer, said, AI copying specific art styles like Ghibli’s could clearly be a case of copyright infringement. If AI uses an artist’s or studio’s art without permission, it could be illegal under intellectual property laws. Copyright law ensures that an artist’s or studio’s original creations cannot be copied without their consent.”
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