Hayao Miyazaki, the genius behind films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, is a well-known Japanese animator, manga artist, and director. Miyazaki also co-founded Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio based in Tokyo, in 1985. The studio is responsible for countless projects within the animation industry.
But now, OpenAI has an image tool that’s designed to modify pictures to match the style of Studio Ghibli’s animations. Basically, you can turn any photo—whether of your cat or of some offensive, controversial image—into a Ghibli-style animation.
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Now, ChatGPT is facing copyright concerns. Not to mention, this tool poses risks against artists who pour their heart and soul into their work, only for it to be recreated in a matter of seconds by some robot.
Back in 2016, Miyazaki expressed his strong opinions against AI’s role in animation.
“I am utterly disgusted,” he said at the time. “If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”
Spoken like a true artist who is devoted to his craft.
Others have recently shared similar opinions on X, with one person writing: “Look, call me the fun police or whatever, but Hayao Miyazaki didn’t spend his entire life cultivating a distinct artistic identity so that AI could reduce decades of his discipline and integrity to meme fodder. It’s a shame how easily y’all abandon principle just to feel included.”
And as another user stated, “Irony is dead and all, but it’s pretty depressing to see Ghibli AI slop on the timeline not only because Miyazaki famously thinks AI art is disgusting but because he’s spent the last 50 years making art about environmental waste for petty human uses.”
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