Studio Ghibli is the Latest Victim of the Ever-Encroaching AI Machine

Please stop sharing your cutesy photos with that Studio Ghibli filter all over social media. 

We haven’t even gotten over our outrage over Meta’s LibGen, and now we have ChatGPT’s new AI tool that allows users to put a filter over their photos to get it transformed into a Studio Ghibli style picture. Now that a class action lawsuit is underway against Meta over LibGen, another controversy is sweeping across the AI space. 

What does this mass Ghibilification really represent?

My feeds are now flooded with Ghibli-filtered photos of friends, acquaintances, and celebrities. Each time I see one, I die a little bit inside. If you know anything about Ghibli creator Hayao Miyazaki, it should be that not only has he spent decades building up his brand and honing his craft, not only does he painstakingly drawing each scene frame by frame, he also loathes AI. 

In fact, this is what he said about the technology when it was presented to him: “I am utterly disgusted. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself."

Studio Ghibli is known for making high-quality thoughtful films centred around themes of love, spirit, friendship, hope, grief, and more. At the very heart of these films is humanity. The characters are full of heart, beautifully flawed and human. For OpenAI to create a filter that allows anyone to Ghibli-fy any picture commodifies and devalues the original art and artist.

So while some people might think that it’s just a fun filter and they’re not doing any harm by hopping onto the trend, it’s actually contributing to the normalisation of using AI filters and the rampant unconsensual usage of a trademarked artstyle by a copyrighted animation studio. Or, like my friend Kayce said, it’s like giving Miyazaki a huge middle finger. 

And like another friend Amber said:

Stop building LLMs on a foundation of piracy!

LLMs need to learn, and the more they can learn, the better they’ll be at doing their job. Unfortunately, in order for that learning to take place, you need learning material. Lots and lots of material. So where do you find this material from? It’s extremely disappointing that some of the biggest and most influential tech companies have chosen to use the worst possible way of acquiring content—through theft. Simply because it is cheaper and faster, and because they know that there is nothing we can do about it. What is doubly disappointing is how many casual users of AI tech are either ignorant about how this tech has been developed or are aware but still believe that their personal convenience or entertainment or fleeting endorphin boost is more important than defending the hard work and IP rights of others.

What AI-generated art defenders are saying—and why I’m not buying it

I’ve also had people come into my DMs defending AI theft and citing the benefits of AI in art. I lost patience after debating with one too many of these people, so I ended up blocking them. 

Essentially, they’re saying:

1. AI makes art more accessible to everyone now

2. AI cuts out the tedious work and delivers efficient results

3. The Ghibli filter is just a celebration of an art style, not stealing

4. This makes more people appreciate—or discover—Studio Ghibli

One even crowed, “I’d be flattered and even happy to see my art being imitated and shared all over social media!” 

First of all, I doubt Miyazaki is so desperate for validation that he would consent to his art—which he spent years perfecting—being stolen and appropriated by anyone and everyone. 

Secondly, given that he has openly expressed his disgust for AI, to use the very technology he despises to steal his art is beyond disrespectful. This is anything but a celebration of his art. If you truly want to celebrate it, draw it in your own style using your own hands, not upload a photo (or however that works—I haven’t bothered trying) or type a prompt.  

And on the argument of AI making art more accessible, I really don’t understand how much more accessible art needs to be. We all have access to pen and paper, we all have basic imagination. We can all start with develop a story, crafting a character, we can doodle. 

Art has always been accessible; the only thing that is inaccessible is the patience and dedication required to make art.

Which brings me to my counterargument for point (2). 

Making art is about the process, the trying and failing and step-by-step growth

Still from My Neighbour Totoro, Studio Ghibli

It really depends on what you mean by “tedious work”. Is drafting tedious? Is revising your book tedious? Are crafting your characters and world-building tedious? Is writing the entire book tedious?

I, too, would like to finish writing a book faster. But going through the whole painstaking process is how you get better at your craft. It’s how to develop your very own narrative voice and get better with each book you write. Wanting to just have written and not write, wanting results without putting in the necessary work is a mindset shaped by capitalist culture.

As writers, we spend hours writing crappy drafts and revising them, developing our characters, studying our favourite writers and developing our own unique narrative voice and writing style. And I know my artist friends put in just as much work and dedication into honing their craft. I know how many drafts and sketches they’ve discarded, each one shaping them into the artists they are today. 

I know their frustration at not being as good as they want to be, their desire to be good enough for their standards one day. I know their relentless attempts to find well-paying gigs, learn new techniques, seek inspiration, etc, because that’s what we do as writers too. 

It all just boils down to profit. 

Capitalism has us chasing end results and bottom lines, and eager to cut out all the in-between work to arrive at the destination. While that might work for the corporate world (and AI does improve efficiency), art is not where you can just skip the journey. Putting in the in-between work is how you grow as a writer/artist/creative. 

Not to mention what ChatGPT creates will never be as authentic, heartfelt, and human as anything an actual human creates. It doesn’t have the unique experiences we’ve had, nor does it experience the entire spectrum of human emotions. All it can do is regurgitate what it has been fed (and some of which is stolen work). Ellen expresses this sentiment beautifully in her Substack—I highly recommend giving it a read.

What will the future be like for creatives?

Gif from Porco Rosso, Studio Ghibli

Now, it’s not just writers and artists who are affected.

Just yesterday, I saw several TikTok videos talking about the new capability of ChatGPT to generate fully designed ads and creative assets with models that look scarily lifelike—effectively cutting out the role of graphic designers. Already, several of them have expressed their disgust and concern in the comments. 

Who is ChatGPT going to come for next? And when will we all start taking the unchecked encroachment of this technology seriously—when it come for your job and affects corporations rather than just independent creatives?

I hear the argument that we as creatives need to evolve (“get with the times or be left behind!”), and that AI is just like the camera or Photoshop, a tool that will help creatives, not replace them. But how can it not replace creatives if it literally steals from us (without consent or compensation—I can’t stress this enough) and mimics our writing/art/design style? Like many artists have asserted on Threads, this is NOT like Photoshop or the camera. 

What’s next? Hopefully more class-action lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta for their egregious acts of theft, and more regulations to be put in place that will protect copyrighted work (i.e. anything published) from being fed to AI machines. At the very least, creatives would ideally be given the option to allow their work to be fed to AI in exchange for fair payment. Theft is NOT the answer. Publishers also need to be on the author’s side and protect our work from AI’s reach.

Will we get to see all this put into place? I’m trying to stay optimistic, given that it’s still early days and most creatives are mounting a strong resistance against AI theft. But the stronger the tide grows, I foresee more and more people going along with this sea change. 

We need to keep defending human-generated art. Keep creating, keep sharing your work—and don’t let your voice be drowned out by the roar of AI defenders. Creating art is an act of resistance, now more than ever.

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If you’re looking for human-written stories about characters who love and dream and fight for their destinies, you might be interested in my books (now also available at Bookshop.org). Visit joycechua.com/books to discover more. ❤️

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