The sad story behind those Studio Ghibli memes, humans require a “modest death event” to understand AGI risk, robots in homes trials: AI Eye.
Social media feeds were overrun this week with memes created using OpenAIs buzzy new GPT-4o image generator in the style of Japanese anime house Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle).
Theres Aussie breakdancer Raygun doing her signature kangaroo move, that image of Ben Affleck looking depressed and sucking on a ciggie, gangster mode Vitalik and thousands more images all captured in the admittedly adorable Studio Ghibli style.
But theres a much darker side to the trend.
The memes emerged as footage from 2016 resurfaced of studio founder Hayao Miyazaki reacting to an early demo of OpenAIs image generation capability. He said he was utterly disgusted by it and that he would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.
Miyazaki added that a machine that draws pictures like people do was “an awful insult to life, and PC Mag reported at the time that afterward he said in sorrow, We humans are losing faith in ourselves.
