Large, emotive eyes, flowing hair and subtle expressions livened up in soft pastel tones: It’s almost impossible to have missed anime versions of your favourite movie characters, the most shipped celebrity couple, or the random photos of your friends on social media in the last few days. Yes, the Ghibli-style AI images are in, and how.
Just days after OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT rolled out its “most advanced AI image generator to date” on March 25 to include native image generation capabilities, users tried their hands on the tech, emulating various popular artistic styles to create AI portraits. And the one style that took the internet by storm was that of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio founded in 1985 by legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki, director Isao Takahata, and producer Toshio Suzuki. It produced films featuring hand-drawn, vivid frames with a rich colour palette and minimal use of computer techniques.
But as much as the people across social media seem to be obsessed with the fun twist to real-life images, the OG Ghibli fans are not really happy. Neither is the artists’ community which identifies with the hard work, creativity and emotional labour that goes into painting a Ghibli character.
Cute yet ‘disappointing’ trend
“We all are familiar with the dreamy charm of the Ghibli style. The exclusivity and beauty of it set it apart. But when freely available, it opens a Pandora’s box, which sets our inside demon loose. Just because the AI-Ghibli looks cute, it does not mean it’s harmless,” says Kolkata-based illustrator and graphic novelist Charbak Dipta. “As Miyazaki said, ‘AI is an insult to life itself’. I, as an artist, am very disappointed to see this trend,” he adds.
With the click of a button, AI now claims to “Ghiblify” anything. (Image: X/@MDurbar)
For Bengaluru-based comic artist, illustrator and technology professional Indrajit Kanungo, the joy of creating something, no matter how good or bad, by pouring your heart and soul into it hits differently. “And knowing that this is mine, and no one else would be able to do it the way I did, is the most divine feeling. We are going to rob the future artist of this feeling if we support this,” he rues.
AI-Ghibli: Art or theft?
“Every time you post an AI-Ghibli photo, you are committing a theft and killing the artist fraternity,” says a miffed Dipta. “I don’t know the complex legal procedure and why the Ghibli team is still silent, but I think it is a crime to steal the art style and make it free. Not only Ghibli, I have seen other art styles, too, which are being plagiarised on the internet by AI,” he points out.
Kolkata-based scholar Prithwiraj Saha, who is working on his PhD research on the Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Calcutta, says since this is not exactly copying an art, but only adapting and applying its style, there is still a question on whether you can term it ‘theft’. “I don’t know the copyright policies of Ghibli Studio, but unless it clearly prohibits copying its ‘style’, there is hardly anything that can be done about it,” says Saha, an assistant professor in economics at Techno India Group’s Institute of Management.
With the rocket speed with which the technology has evolved, AI can now pick up minute details of any art, programme, content or person and adapt their behaviour. The more intricate the data is, the easier it is for AI to mimic it/them to perfection.
What has OpenAI said?
Meanwhile, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has largely encouraged the ‘Ghiblification’ experiments, with CEO Sam Altman changing his profile picture on social media platform X into a Ghibli-style portrait.
In a technical paper, the company had said the new tool would be sticking to 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 it 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.”
The looming economic factor
The ‘piracy’ of intellectual property also leads to falling demand for original art in the market. With several firms turning to ChatGPT-driven Ghiblified images for their campaign, AI-driven art might soon replace the creative minds that they would otherwise hire, says Kolkata-based illustrator, comics artist and cartoonist Subham Bhattacharjee. “Artists like us will soon lose our jobs if companies can conveniently create replicas of a form of art on the required themes for free, by just feeding a few prompts,” adds Bhattacharjee, who also runs a comics-based ‘Bhottobabur Page’ on Facebook.
Playback singer Shreya Ghoshal shared multiple Ghiblified images of herself and moments with her family on her Facebook Page. (Source/ Facebook@shreyaghoshal)
Dipta is appalled by the ignorance of certain artists jumping on the Ghibli bandwagon. “I am surprised to see that even some artists are going with this flow. A very sensitive filmmaker has happily shared the Ghibli version of himself and scenes from his movies. I don’t know what is going on in his mind, but if this trend is nurtured, that day is not far when AI will be able to produce 10 films in his style in seconds, rendering him jobless,” he says. “Not only the artists but everyone’s job is at stake if the AI trend is encouraged. Every individual, be it a doctor, engineer, teacher, or whoever is sharing this AI- Ghibli art on social media, is encouraging his/her own job loss in the near future,” he says.
Use of tech in art
Just as in any other field, the integration of technology with art has proved to be a game-changer in the past few decades. From offering new tools and mediums of creation, platforms to share and popularise art, fostering innovative forms of expression and engagement with audiences, technology has aided art and artists in every possible way.
“Every artist today is dependent on technology. We digital artists use tech as a tool to create original art,” says Bhattacharjee. “Yet, someone using AI to create so-called art by feeding just a few instructions, without any imagination or dedication, is completely unfair to the artists,” he adds.
Can AI-Ghibli replace the original? Here’s what ChatGPT had to say
Echoing similar emotions, Kanungo says, “I do not hold anything against technology. It is my livelihood. The main purpose of AI is to make people’s lives easier, taking care of mundane tasks, automating things wherever possible so that they can spend their time on more meaningful things and creative pursuits. But I can never support some algorithm generating an art piece on my behalf.”
However, Saha, who is studying the production and scope of AI extensively for his doctoral discourse, argues the artists’ heartburn ultimately boils down to nothing other than the labour-technology debate. “However diabolical and pessimistic it may sound, this is also, in a way, easing out a tedious task. When you are using other tools to make things easier for you, there is no way that you could not have seen this coming,” he says.
Pointing out that AI is creating a new “image” on demand in Ghibli style, he says, “Studio Ghibli is not known for the images, it has more to it. The most significant among them are its animation, themes and storytelling, which AI has not mimicked yet.”
But, can it replicate them in the future? With experiments afoot to see how much AI can pick up through the ‘deep learning’ method, it is quite possible, admits Saha. “It is beautifully dangerous,” he quips, speaking about the ever-expanding scope of AI.
A digital art by illustrator Indrajit Kanungo to register a symbolic protest against machine/prompt-generated ‘art’. (Credit: Indrajit Kanungo)
What AI can learn and the way forward
AI can learn and adopt things with patterns. Just as it can do any specific mechanical work for you, it can pick signature styles of any artist or studio, says Saha. “Because it (any signature style) is repetitive,” he explains. “Whereas, themes, if different for each art piece, cannot be mastered and used by AI to create other works in the same pattern. Just because there’s no pattern, and AI has no heart, soul or power of imagination,” he adds.
According to Saha, breaking patterns time and again is the key to keeping one’s art alive in this AI age. “An artist has to be really creative and break his or her own patterns with every art piece. The uniqueness (and not a signature style of an artist) of each creation is bound to pay off,” he says.
Artists say there should be some kind of regulation on the way AI is intruding into everything. “Not only art, AI is taking your personal data, bank details and ID details which can be used in criminal activities. Serious steps should be taken against this mishandling and theft of art,” says Dipta.
However, he strongly believes that AI cannot replace art, just as photography could not displace paintings and cinema could not supersede theatre. “Everything finally finds its own place. I think AI ‘art’, if at all it can be called so, will remain as a cheap alternative to traditional handmade art in the future,” he says.
Kanungo sees hope in people’s resistance against such aping of art forms. He himself has been using his art as a weapon to counter the Ghibli-AI trend on social media. “As long as at least one person is talking against it, at least one person can answer the question, ‘why do we need art?’ without bringing in the context of money, there is hope,” he concludes.
An AI-generated Ghibli-style image of an iconic scene from Bollywood movie 'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge' (Source/X@ivivekch); a Ghiblified image of celebrity couple Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma (Source/X@mufaddal_vohra) 
With the click of a button, AI now claims to “Ghiblify” anything. (Image: X/@MDurbar)
Playback singer Shreya Ghoshal shared multiple Ghiblified images of herself and moments with her family on her Facebook Page. (Source/ Facebook@shreyaghoshal)
Can AI-Ghibli replace the original? Here’s what ChatGPT had to say
A digital art by illustrator Indrajit Kanungo to register a symbolic protest against machine/prompt-generated ‘art’. (Credit: Indrajit Kanungo)
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