I’m sure you have seen it all over social media, the new trend that has been going on regarding Chat GPT’s newest update that lets users transform memes, personal photos, anti-immigration rhetoric in American Politics, and more into the art style of Studio Ghibli Founder, Hayao Miyazaki. But it has begun to raise concerns over Copyright and the livelihoods of artists who make a living through artwork.
The issue was brought up in a new article from AP News in an interview with Josh Weigensberg, a partner at the law firm Pryor Cashman, who has asked the question whether the AI model was trained on Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli’s work. OpenAI didn’t respond to a question if it had a license. But if it doesn’t have a license or permission to use it, this will add to the multiple copyright lawsuits it is currently battling. Artist Karla Ortiz, who is part of a party that is suing AI Image Generators for copyright infringement, expressed her anger when the Trump Administration decided to use the Faux Ghibli Art to promote their Anti-immigration rhetoric, hoping the Studio would take legal action against OpenAI.
With the rise in popularity of this new Faux Ghibli Art and other AI-generated art, real artists and creators continue to voice their concern and fear of the rise of widespread copyright infringement and art theft. In certain cases, violations go unpunished on a technicality, since at its core it is just a machine studying documents and art that was made by human beings, scraping products of real human labor. Artificial Intelligence has plagued countless industries including Animation, Anime, Art, Entertainment, Manga, Music, and Video Games, Unions such as SAG-AFTRA, and the WGA (Writers Guild of America) have gone on strike to help protect workers and actors in the entertainment industry from the threat of AI and make sure companies do not replace workers or performers with artificial intelligence. As for certain critics who suggest that artists need to find “Better Work” should be more empathetic and maybe a job change themselves. What is even more pathetic is that there is now a trend where AI Creators (using the term creator loosely in that aspect) are posting fake cease-and-desist letters from Ghibli that are even faker than the Slop that is being put out, just another way to get attention and clicks.
What are Miyazaki’s Views on Artificial Intelligence?
In the 2016 documentary, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, Miyazaki strongly condemned the technology in the past. “Every morning.. not recent days, but I see my friend who has a Disability. It’s so hard for him just to do a high five, his arm with stiff muscle reaching out to my hand. Now, thinking of him, I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted. I would never wish to incorporate this into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself, I feel like we are nearing the end of times, where we humans are losing faith in ourselves.
Chance Huskey, VP of distribution for GKIDS, the North American distributor for Studio Ghibli films issued an oblique statement this weekend during the release of the premiere of the 4K Restoration of Studio Ghibli’s 1997 film, Princess Mononoke: “In a time when technology tries to replicate humanity, we are thrilled that audiences value a theatrical experience that respects and celebrates Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece in all its cinematic hand-drawn glory.”
Experience The Beauty of Hand-Drawn Animation with the Academy Award-Winning Film, The Boy and the Heron, Available now on Blu-ray.
Finally, another problem that OpenAI is experiencing is that despite finding “success” in its new update, it’s coming to a very real processing cost as OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman announced that it is causing their GPUs to melt, causing the company to scale back and limit its users (both paid and free). It requires a tremendous amount of energy to create (I use that term loosely) images and Faux Art. For example, Google has had to resort to buying power from several nuclear reactors to fuel its AI endeavor. The company had said the new tool would be taking a “conservative approach” in the way it mimics the aesthetics of individual artists. “We added a refusal which triggers when a user attempts to generate an image in the style of a living artist,” it said. But the company added in a statement that it “permits broader studio styles — which people have used to generate and share some truly delightful and inspired original fan creations.”
Source: AP News
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