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Journalism of Courage
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently reacted to a social media post featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a Ghibli-style animation. The images, posted by the Government of India’s official MyGov account on X, depicted PM Modi in a variety of scenes: shaking hands with US President Donald Trump, posing with French President Emmanuel Macron, playing with lion cubs, and visiting the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The caption accompanying the post read, “Main character? No. He’s the whole storyline. Experience through New India in Studio Ghibli strokes.”
Altman responded by reposting it along with an Indian flag emoji, sparking a flood of reactions from users online.
Some speculated that Altman was trying to win over Indian audiences, particularly as OpenAI ramps up its expansion in the country. One user quipped, “Bro wants to milk some of the engagement farm,” while another added, “Good to see Sama getting impressed with Modi Ji.”
A third person commented, “Seems like the ChatGPT Ghibli load crash came because of Indian users.” Yet another individual wrote, “it’s not just AI art anymore. Reality’s officially been fine-tuned for vibes.”
Altman also reshared a Ghibli-inspired image shared by India Post.
The massive surge in the use of ChatGPT‘s new image generator, driven by GPT-4o, led to a heavy load surge on OpenAI’s servers, resulting in slower service for users.
Since the launch of the image-generation tool, social media has been flooded with dreamy, Ghibli-style creations, with users quickly embracing the feature. These artworks often reimagine popular figures and moments through the lens of the iconic Japanese animation style.
However, the rapid popularity of Ghibli-inspired AI art has raised eyebrows, with some people accusing OpenAI of capitalising on Studio Ghibli’s signature aesthetic without compensating the Japanese studio. The controversy was further fuelled by an old viral video showing renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki criticising AI researchers who presented him with AI-generated artwork.
