AI generated Ghibli images go viral as OpenAI loosens its rules
63 comments
·March 29, 2025BeFlatXIII
It's been amusing to watch everyone get big mad at every passing AI style fad. Some people can't stand seeing others have fun when that fun doesn't involve paying others.
bakugo
> Some people can't stand seeing others have fun when that fun doesn't involve paying others.
This "fad" very much does involve paying OpenAI.
_zoltan_
I've been transforming our family images for free.
zomglings
You feel comfortable uploading your family images to OpenAI servers?
rideontime
And now you're getting bumped down to 3 images per day. https://x.com/sama/status/1905296867145154688
renewiltord
Please do not spread misinformation. You can do it on the free account. I checked with a new account.
6stringmerc
By participating in the AI system you are contributing to the progress of the business and though you are not paying currency, you are paying with behavior that they can capitalize upon.
SirSavary
Who do you think is paying for the compute?
TeMPOraL
It doesn't require it, but even if some people are doing it on the paid plan - ignoring for the moment that the argument is asinine because this is a fixed recurring payment, not pay-per-use - why do you care? Some people have fun and it involves paying other people; if you're neither, it's still none of your business.
bakugo
Why so defensive? I never stated any such opinion on it. I just pointed out the fact that it's not some sort of anti-capitalist activity that doesn't involve monetary transactions - billionaires are actively getting richer out of this.
13years
It is quite ironic that OpenAI loosens its rules, promoted Ghibli images, apparently in direct opposition to the viewpoints of Ghibli's founder, while also pursuing DeepSeek for using OpenAI data without permission.
FYI, some of my further elaboration on the topic:
"Everything that you loved for its uniqueness, craftsmanship, cultural significance, will be mass-produced until you despise seeing it."
https://www.mindprison.cc/p/studio-ghibli-style-ai-art-crisi...
disqard
Thank you for writing this.
There are various ways to try and make sense of what we're living through right now, and commentary such as yours (presumably informed by decades of seeing this industry evolve) will be valuable in the coming years, as we all try to find our bearings in this post-LLM, post-truth, post-literate world.
rimeice
“Quite ironic” being the understatement of the year. I’d opt for insanely ironic, unambiguously hypocritical or risible.
techpineapple
It’s kind of interesting things like this are happening while at the same time, some leaders, like Musk, are making an anti-globalization argument because of the way that it pollutes a places culture.
FloorEgg
Can you point me to where Musk made this argument?
techpineapple
I could if Twitter search wasn’t god awful, and if Musk didn’t tweet like 50 times a day.
fullshark
Different leaders believe different things, and both of these guys will say literally anything if they feel its in their interest. I'm sure Musk is pro-globalization if globalization = Grok being the world's preferred LLM.
Phil_Latio
Globalization comes in many forms.
exe34
Musk will say anything to get more money and power.
biophysboy
Its interesting that they picked an animation studio whose creator is famously opposed to AI, and whose stories frequently involve battles between technology and humanity.
mgiannopoulos
OpenAI didn’t choose anything. This style simply happened to go viral. The model can do all sorts of stuff.
crimsoneer
It will specifically stop you if you try and ask it for the style of Disney or marvel, while Sama specifically tweeted an example of Ghibli. There is very clearly a conscious choice around which companies IP they protect, and which they're happy to exploit (eg, not US companies).
Like the "Her" tweet, I suspect this is another moment of Sama being bloody thoughtless and may very well come and bit him in the ass when he inevitably tries to deny this in the future.
EDIT: Okay, really weirdly, I tried this when this first came out and definitely seemed to hit a content policy block. and now it works.
cma
I just asked it "Make an image of a karate fighter in the style of a disney animation" and it did it in distinct Disney style. What it produced did not look like public domain steamboat willy or anything either, more 60s era Disney.
Where are you getting this? It may have been after they reduced refusals recently and it wouldn't do it before?
Disney is also the Ghibli distributor in the US aren't they?
techjamie
Strangely, if you're going to mess with IP in any country, Japan is one of the ones that you should not. Japanese law is infamously brutal about copyright and has no concept of fair use, so you can get smacked very easily by it.
I guess they don't have assets in Japan to risk and therefore don't care.
dlivingston
Incorrect. I just asked ChatGPT to show an image in the style of Disney/Pixar, and another in the style of a Marvel superhero. Both worked without complaint.
I would share the conversation but it's not generating a link ("Sharing conversations with user uploaded images is not yet supported.")
_zoltan_
why would a us company care about Japanese copyright?
flappyeagle
You seem like the kind of person that would complain about “fake news”. You are literally generating fake news right now… a conspiracy theory even.
You are seeing what you want to see because of your personal idea of who Sam Altman is.
I literally just asked 4o to “create an image of a barista in the Disney animation style” and it did it without any issues.
6stringmerc
This is an interesting point because it shows top-level control of output - by allowing one type of infringement rather than all types of infringement, it’s a human based decision. It’s only a matter of time before AI crosses into trademark domain issues and that’s where the big money lawyers will likely step in. As in, it harms the mark and it can be financially damaging unless stopped - and these systems clearly can be stopped from certain outputs.
quikoa
>Sam Altman Promotes 4o Using Ghibli-Style Images
From: https://www.mindprison.cc/p/studio-ghibli-style-ai-art-crisi...
He could've chosen anything else.
thatguysaguy
That article links to a tweet by a guy who is not sam altman starting the trend. It was already viral by the time sam did it.
tgv
He only cares about money. Perhaps he now likes to be an edgelord as well, created in the image of the modern Mammon, Musk.
dlivingston
He chose the Ghibli style because it's such a big meme right now. Clearly.
null
biophysboy
Every gain is intentional; every cost is an accident.
perihelions
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13152651 ("‘I am utterly disgusted’: Legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki takes AI down a peg" (2016), 32 comments)
(Also alluded to in the WaPo OP)
sigmar
I feel like the disgust that Miyazaki felt seeing an AI generated movie is very different than people editing their profile pics with a Ghibli style-transfer. (For several reasons, such as: the profile picture was already original art, no one is replacing artists with profile photo filters, and people are celebrating the style rather than profiting off plagiarism)
bongodongobob
I can't read the article. What's the news here? We've been able to do this for years now.
dev1ycan
[flagged]
https://archive.is/BmqRB