What the Ghibli craze tells us about big tech

A mobile phone in Bangkok, Thailand displays an AI-generated image in the style of Japan's Studio Ghibli animation. That many people are reflexively uploading photos of themselves to use the tool should raise concerns about how their data and likenesses are being put to use. AFPShow less

When it comes to fads, human culture is endlessly inventive. Over the past 100 years, people have gone wild for hula hoops, 3D glasses, a whole collection of different dance crazes as well as Rubik’s cubes and Tamagotchis. The internet era has added a new category of collective – if short-lived – enthusiasms from Rickrolling, Facebook personality quizzes and email chain letters to the ice-bucket challenge and the Harlem Shake.

The recent release by Open AI of an advanced ChatGPT image generator that can recreate photos in the style of Japan’s famous Ghibli animation studio has arguably created the 21st century’s latest craze. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has claimed that ChatGPT gained a million new users in an hour, posting on X that the company’s “GPUs are melting” as people across the world clamour for this new form of AI-generated art.

The meme is everywhere on social media. Most of the images generated are light-hearted – family photos, recreations of famous historical images and some corporate advertisements. Others are controversial or even sinister – the Israeli military, for instance, has created Ghibli-style images of its soldiers as they continue their bombing campaign in Gaza.

The rendering of personal photographs into whimsical Japanese cartoons may prove to be another flash in the pan. Nevertheless, it reveals the power of big tech and underlines the breath-taking speed at which online innovations can break out of the computer lab and into our everyday lives. This calls for hard thinking about the ethical and responsible uses of these powerful – and growing – technologies.

The excitement about the Ghibli tool is understandable. It is fun, culturally relatable and an accessible way for people to enjoy powerfully creative technology. But such excitement should be tempered by caution. That many people are reflexively uploading photos of themselves and their loved ones, in addition to their personal details, should raise concerns about how their data and likenesses are being put to use.

There are also concerns about copyright, intellectual property and the wider ethics of using human-generated work to produce digital images. Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli world, is on record as saying that AI-generated animation is an "insult to life itself". Others share this queasiness about mixing AI with human creativity – in February, thousands of people signed an open letter addressed to Christie’s auction house in New York, urging it to cancel a planned sale of AI-derived art, claiming that it used “AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license”. “These models and the companies behind them,” the letter added, “exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them.”

The answer to the challenging questions posed by such innovations lies somewhere between wholehearted adoption and knee-jerk rejection

As is often the case, the answer to the challenging questions posed by such innovations lies somewhere between wholehearted adoption and knee-jerk rejection. In the UAE – an early adopter of digital technologies such as AI – a measured approach has been evident for years. Last week, this was summed up by Omran Sharaf, assistant foreign minister for advanced science and technology, who told an AI summit in Geneva that: "We shouldn’t be paranoid, we should be very smart about the way we approach it … But, at the same time, we should be very cautious not to be reckless about it, and work on systems that ensure responsible behaviour, bring transparency and make sure there are controls put in place so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands."

It is this open-minded but qualified embrace of advanced technology that provides the best way forward. Informed caution can act as a steadying counterweight to the pull of the latest online fad.