The Great Ghibli-fication
On March 25th the Ghibli-fication of my X timeline began.
I was sitting in a Starbucks with a co-worker discussing a workshop we were about to put on.
We had been talking about something on X and I couldn’t resist the siren call to scroll my timeline. That’s when I saw Grant’s post.
That post alone was fun, the pup sure is cute. Then I scrolled a bit more and everything changed. My timeline became Ghibli-fied! It was glorious. Seeing the world through the lens of Miyazaki brought a lightness and joy to my timeline, which it desperately needed.
I turned my phone around and showed it to my co-worker. “Check this out.” I knew his daughters were into anime and he might think it was cool.
“Wow, that’s neat,” he pulled up the ChatGPT app on his phone and snapped a selfie, asking for the LLM to convert it into Ghibli style. We watched as the image loaded bit by bit, reminding us of the good old days when images loaded line by line over dial-up.
Moments later, a cartoon version of his face was smiling back at us, and it looked just like a character in one of the Ghibli films. He posted it on his timeline and we were back to chatting about work.
The speed of selfie to Ghibli is amazing with the new AI model. It’s also slightly terrifying. I’ll get to the scary bit in a moment.
Every time I checked my feed, more Ghibli. I loved it. The en-Ghibli-fication of X was something I could get behind.
A Sour Taste
Things changed when I stumbled on this tweet.
I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself - Miyazaki
Discovering Miyazaki’s intense conviction regarding AI altered my view of every image in my timeline. The man who inspired all of this art on my feed was against the use of AI and viewed it as an insult to life itself. How quickly my joy turned to ashes in my mouth.
What is the cost of AI? As I began reframing my thinking around these images, I saw the darker side of the Ghibli-fication. It stole something from a studio that had spent decades creating pieces of art that brought joy. With a few simple words “make a copy of this picture in the style of studio Ghibli,” you can create a saccharin image. Is that a bad thing? The ability to create an image in the style of an artist without their consent?
Art is a broad topic, stealing an artist’s style, creating new images similar to what they have dedicated their time to may not feel like a violation as you create them. If we reframe this as something more personal, such as AI stealing your voice, it becomes more troubling.
Imagine for a moment that someone liked your voice and found a recording of it. That recording enabled them to train a model and begin making this new doppelgänger read anything they desired. I would be quite upset knowing part of what makes me well, me, was out there doing and saying things I wasn’t aware of and possibly didn’t condone.
The other side of the generative revolution that’s happening is the laziness we are being drawn towards. We can see this in Miyazaki’s work as well.
Investing time to gain a skill for the simple purpose of creating is part of what makes us human. We invest ourselves in art and that investiture is part of what makes art magical. Sharing thoughts, feelings, emotions across time and space from one human mind to another is nothing short of magic. If we offload this to machines, where will that leave us?
I think Zelda Williams, Robin William’s daughter, put it well.
…how deeply empty life will become if we relegate the pursuit of art or knowledge to a machine because some people don't like the effort of learning, whether that's an artistic skill or homework in school.
Lazy doesn't just affect the body, it rots the mind.
The laziness of the Ghibli-fication of my timeline is heralding is worrisome. Am I becoming a Luddite as I age? Perhaps this new technology needs to be embraced.
If you’re still here, thanks for reading. I’m curious about your opinion on how AI is changing our world. Leave a comment so we can continue the conversation.