'An Insult To Life Itself': Hayao Miyazaki’s AI Criticism Resurfaces As OpenAI’s Ghibli-Style Image Trend Takes Over Social Media
'An Insult To Life Itself': Hayao Miyazaki’s AI Criticism Resurfaces As OpenAI’s Ghibli-Style Image Trend Takes Over Social Media
OpenAI's latest image-generation update has taken social media by storm, as users are flooding X, Instagram, and Reddit with Studio Ghibli-style images
Not suprised, Miyazaki's art is deeply concerned with what it means to be human, and the beauty to be found there.
The art style is an superficial aesthetic of that beauty, not the heart of it.
And none of that heart is in ai generated images. They're souless immitations that ape the substance of his works without having any. Like how hallmark pretends to depict "love" with paper thin characters and sanitizes it of any real substance or meaning
It's striking isn't it how the debate around generative AI is essentially drawn along the line that separates good taste from bad. To win the debate we're going to need really good art.
Or a lot of irish car bombs, and I don't mean the drink
It definitely tracks that this same post in Reddit is overwhelmed with people supporting OpenAI on the matter.
It's a fundamental issue understanding what art is for sure. People who could really draw well could already copy his style perfectly, but just because you can perfectly copy it doesn't make it original, and thus have the same value. It's not that it has no value, just considerably less value than his films.
It's that total lack of originality with AI slavishly copying a style like this that shows its lack of creative value. It's like pressing play on a keyboard programmed with 20 top tunes of the 80s and randomly pressing the high hat key.
Sure, it enables someone who can't play the piano to "play" a song, but not really. It's the same getting AI to copy by rote someone else's style they developed, it requires no effort or application of originality.
I think the show Arcane is one of the best examples of commercially released art in recent decades; interestingly, what happened is people actually accused it of using AI where there was none. Also Variety et al did a whole round of balking that anyone would invest in something so frivolous as serious animation for adults
There's always gonna be Capitalists who try and commodify art, but fundamentally humans are the the only ones who can make NEW insights that resonate with people RIGHT NOW. If AI IS ever able to observe the world and reflect on it and offer something new, in the way humans are, it would still be from their own perspective, not ours.
Fuck this
The clip is from a documentary where Miyazaki works on a 3DCG short film (something completely unheard of). You can watch the documentary here. I do like the point he makes:
(Suzuki) "So, what's your goal?"
(Guy) "Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do."
(Miyazaki) "We humans are losing faith in ourselves."
A certain artist once said: I want AI to clean my house, do the dishes so I can do art. No the other way around.
Dayum, bro was crying. Being shut dow by Miyazaki like that must've felt like your soul being eviscerated.
Its heartbreaking for him, but i've never seen such pathetic animation in my life. At the end of the day, they needed to be sized down, because all that GenAI is doing is melting every creative endeavor to slop. The spirit of humanity, exploited by a prompt.
That miyazaki quote's out of context . It's not referencing genAI , it's used to liken his disabled friend to a cgi monster . Shouldn't have to explain how fucked that is . If you're gonna criticise AI in art , don't spread misinfo
I just watched the video in question, and this is an entirely backwards take. Miyazaki is saying the animation is an insult to the pain of those with disablities like his friend, not disparaging people with disabilities.
It isn't specifically about generative ai, but he is talking about art (animations) made through machine-learning being a cold mimicry of real human efforts. I think the comparison is pretty fair and it applies in both instances.
If you lꝏk at a monster and 1st thing comes to your brain's disabled person , there's some thing wrong with you
Let's not take every thing miyazaki says at face value . Ffs he compared swiping gestures on ipads to masturbation . This tendency he seems to have with every new technology being The Worst Thing Ever , ⦅bogus|overly hyperbolic) comparisons|catastrophising ("end of times" in reference to desire to create genAI art technology⦆ , think the disability comparison definitely qualifies
It's completely in context. We have the complete context. It's in response to an AI generated walk cycle, and he specifically called out the technology as something he never wants to work with. The people he spoke to said they wanted to make an AI that can draw like humans do, which is how generative AI is described.
Yeah he is just being a huge asshole in this presentation, basically shitting on all art that plays on reactions of horror to uncanny movements, there's no meaningful commentary on technology here.
I agree! AI art is an affront to humanity. People should be ashamed to even use AI for art, but in the age of hypercapitalism it's all about money or clout for most people. It's just one more reason why as time goes on I trend more and more towards misanthropy.
And the feature has already been plugged by Open AI. It won't do Ghibli style reimagining anymore
That's sad
