Sam Altman responds to Miyazaki’s ‘insult to life’ remark amid copyright concerns over Ghibli-style AI images

Just about a week and a half back, OpenAI unlocked the native image generation capabilities in GPT-4o (AI model running ChatGPT), which led to whole range of use cases, but the one that caught most attention online was converting real-life images into Studio Ghibli style images. Since then there has been a lot of debate concerning the copyright concerns posed by the new technology.

There are strong opinions on both sides of the debate with some people believing that AI generated art will be a game changer in the future and is every bit as artistic as paintings creating by hand. On the other hand, there are is also firm belief that the images generated by ChatGPT is nothing more than theft.

While Studio Ghibli has chose to remain quite among this discussion, a video of its co-founder Hayao Miyazaki from 2016 has often been references where he calls an art piece generated using an older generation model ‘inslult to life itself’.

Sam Alman reacts to Miyazaki’s statement:

In a recent podcast with YouTuber Varun Mayya, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was asked about the statement from Miyazaki to which the 39 year old reacted saying, “I think the democratization of creating content has been a big net win for society. It has not been a complete win. There are negative things about it, for sure, and certainly it did something about the the art form. ”

“But I think on a whole, it’s been a win, and this is something that I very deeply believe about the power of technology, which is giving everyone more tools, making things easier, lowering the barriers to entry, does significantly increase the number of people that can contribute to society, and we all benefit from that.” the OpenAI CEO added.

What is Studio Ghibli?

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio founded in 1985 by Miyazaki Hayao, Takahata Isao and Suzuki Toshio. The company is known for its high-quality filmmaking with hand-drawn animation and rich storytelling.

Some of the company’s most notable animated films include Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke.

The studio’s films are celebrated for their dreamlike landscapes, soft colour palettes, and deeply human storytelling. The labour-intensive, hand-drawn approach of Ghibli animators has long been considered the gold standard in traditional animation.