OpenAI servers are getting overwhelmed by the crazy demand for the new Studio Ghibli-style edit trend on ChatGPT and well, if it isn’t the consequences of their actions.
In case you’ve somehow missed it, the Studio Ghibli-inspired AI trend has absolutely taken over social media in recent days, with seemingly every person and brand you’ve ever interacted with posting their AI-generated “artwork”. At this point, I am sure half of these people have never even watched Spirited Away, but that’s besides the point.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday to say the servers were “melting” under the demand for Ghibli-fied pictures, but it was “super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT.”
“We are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient,” Altman said.
“Hopefully won’t be long! ChatGPT free tier will get 3 generations per day soon.”
OpenAI has imposed temporary rate limits on image generation, and has restricted free users from using the new model in an attempt to cope with the demand.
While animation-style AI generation has existed for quite a while on similar platforms like DALL-E, the rise in the Ghibli-style pictures is largely due to an easier interface.
Grant Slatton, the guy who popularised the trend when he tweeted his Ghibli-fied picture of him and his wife, told Business Insider it was as simple as prompting ChatGPT to “convert to Studio Ghibli”.
He claims he personally fulfilled “over 100” requests from followers on social media, but also took to X to share that his DMs have also been filled with violent messages from people who do not agree with his promotion of AI.
Can Studio Ghibli take legal action?
While the ethics of the AI generation have been repeatedly drawn into question, particularly given Hayao Miyazaki’s personal thoughts on the concept, it may be difficult for the studio to win a copyright lawsuit.
Basically, there are two ways Ghibli could take action against OpenAI: if they could prove that OpenAI was training its models using the film studio’s body of work, or they could argue that OpenAI is damaging their brand by producing images that resemble Ghibli’s copyrighted works.
Considering that Ghibli-fied versions of Jeffrey Epstein, the JFK assassination, and the 9/11 terror attacks have all been shared on social media, it seemingly wouldn’t be difficult to prove reputational damage.
If Ghibli tried to argue a copyright case based on input (training models using copyrighted work), the studio would have to prove that ChatGPT was, in fact, trained on their work and not on fan art in the same style.
The problem, however, with both arguments is that copyright is very specific — and while Ghibli’s actual works such as characters and scenes are protected, the overall artistic style is not covered.
“If you just evoke the vibe of somebody else’s creative work, it generally doesn’t violate their copyright,” Christa Laser, an intellectual property law professor at Cleveland State University told Business Insider.
OpenAI does have policies in place to stop the generation of images in “the style of a living artist”, but does not have anything to protect “broader studio styles” like Studio Ghibli or Disney.
While Studio Ghibli has not indicated it will pursue any legal action against OpenAI, a federal judge in New York ruled earlier this week that The New York Times and other news outlets can move forward with their own copyright lawsuit against the company over the alleged “widespread theft of millions of The Times’ works” to train chatbots.
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