Artificial Intelligence (AI) has increasingly infiltrated the creative sphere, sparking debates about its influence on artistic integrity, copyright laws, and the livelihood of traditional artists. Most recently, AI tools such as ChatGPT have enabled users to transform images into the iconic hand-drawn style of Studio Ghibli, the legendary animation house founded by Hayao Miyazaki. Social media is now flooded with "Ghiblified" images of friends, pets, celebrities, and even internet-famous memes, igniting discussions on whether it is a revolutionary artistic tool, a trend that will eventually die down or an existential threat to human creativity. Let's take a look...
The Ghibli AI Phenomenon
The AI-generated Ghibli-style trend has taken the internet by storm, rendering real-world images into whimsical pictures that look like they were frames from a Ghibli classic. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, encouraged users to stretch their creative limits by experimenting with their latest toolset. CEO Sam Altman even adopted a Ghibli-style avatar on social media platform X.
However, critics argue that this 'artificial'-driven art generation poses a serious threat to the originality and livelihood of human artists, an issue that legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki has spoken passionately about.
Miyazaki’s Outspoken Resistance to AI
Although Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli has not issued a formal statement, the artist's disdain for AI-generated animation is well-known.
In a 2016 documentary that went viral on social media, Miyazaki was shown an AI demo featuring a animation. The presenter suggested that the software could generate eerie, lifelike movements that human animators had never conceived. Reacting to the same, he said he was "utterly disgusted" by the display, as seen in the documentary footage.
Without mincing his words, Miyazaki said he would "never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all."
"I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself," he added.
AI vs Artists
The rise of aritficially-generated art has sparked larger discussions about its impact on traditional artists. Many fear that automation could strip creatives of their livelihood, much like industrial automation replaced manual labour in the past. Goro Miyazaki, the son of the legendary filmmaker and Studio Ghibli’s managing director, echoed these concerns, predicting 'Artificial intelligence risks taking Japanese anime artists' jobs but nothing can replicate Hayao Miyazaki.'
The studio behind classics such as "Spirited Away", "My Neighbor Totoro", "Howl's Moving Castle", "Ponyo", "Grave of the Fireflies" and more, has yet to comment on the image trend, but Goro said to AFP, "It wouldn't be surprising if, in two years' time, there was a film made completely through AI." However, he noted that whether audiences would want to watch a fully AI-generated animation was another matter.
Despite the rapid changes, new technology also brings "great potential for unexpected talent to emerge", added Goro.
Fears of technological enhancements are not new. The journey of film and animation has been a remarkable one, evolving from rudimentary drawings to multi-million dollar digital productions. What began as a series of still images presented in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion, soon developed in the late 19th century with the Lumière brothers ushering in the projected motion pictures to be viewed by audiences. Animation soon followed, with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), becoming the first feature-length animated film. The transition from film reels to digital formats marked another significant shift in the industry. The introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI), visual effects (VFX) and 3D, opened up the audiences to an immersive film experiene.
AI In Movies
Amidst the buzz around the possibilities of AI and its tools, a video from the documentary “10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki”, doing the rounds online shed light on the mind-boggling efforts Miyazaki's team put into a film. As mentioned in a tweet, "Each has 60k-70k frames, all hand-drawn and painted with watercolour. This 4-second clip from “The Wind Rises” took one animator 15 months to do."
In contrast, another tweet, shared a 1.52 minute trailer of The Lord of the Rings in an animated format. "What if Studio Ghibli directed Lord of the Rings?" AI Filmmaker PJ Ace asked. He went on to say, "I spent $250 in Kling credits and 9 hours re-editing the Fellowship trailer to bring that vision to life—and I’ll show you exactly how I did it."
Ace's post only highlights Hollywood actor-director Ben Affleck's recent comments calling AI a "craftsman at best." During his interview at 2024 CNBC Delivering Alpha investor summit, the "Batman" star declared, “Movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI.”
While insisting "Nothing new is created" with AI, he explained, “What AI is going to do is dis-intermediate the more laborious, less creative, and more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people want to make ‘Good Will Huntings’ to go out and make it."
The Brutalist: "The Brutalist," an Oscar-nominated film, sparked controversy for its use of AI to refine the dialogues by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, raising questions about authenticity and transparency in filmmaking. Director Brady Corbet issued a statement, which explained that AI audio technology Respeecher “was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed.” He defended his lead actors' performances saying, “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”
Speaking at a roundtable discussion attended by ETimes, Felicity Jones addressed the growing excitement—and concern—surrounding AI in filmmaking. “In the sort of face of things like AI, which everyone’s all getting all very excited about, I think really, you know, the idea of things that still feel human and still feel real, we as human beings are going to… Yeah, gravitate towards that,” Jones said. “As much as AI is a wonderful novelty, it doesn’t— I think we should be careful not to slip into the idea that it’s the answer to things, you know. The answer to things is right here in the people that we are, and yeah, we’ve got to be careful with, particularly with technology, I think.”
Respeecher was also credited in the post-production of "Emilia Pérez", while another AI tool, AudioShake, was employed to isolate opera singer Maria Callas’ vocals from 1960s in the biopic "Maria". Rising Sun's machine-learning technology was also used in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis to integrate actor Austin Butler into archival footage of Elvis Presley.
Hollywood veteran Tom Hanks also defended AI’s role in digital de-ageing, a technology used in his upcoming film "Here", directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film, spans 100 years in a single living room, requiring Hanks and co-star Robin Wright to appear decades younger in certain scenes. “We knew that this supercomputer was going to do all the work of six months of postproduction in a nanosecond,” Hanks told Radio Times. “So we shot the scenes at Pinewood and we could look at them immediately.”
Wright acknowledged the software's growing influence but expressed concerns about ethical implications, “It’s happening already. People are using AI without consent and creating actors saying things they never said. So this isn’t new. That’s the scary part.”
Ethics, Morals, and the Impact on Artists
The increasing use of AI in creative industries has prompted ethical concerns, particularly regarding fair compensation for artists. Clayton D’mello, a digital artist, sees AI as a valuable tool for non-creatives but warns of its negative impact on professional artists.
“I personally think AI is a lovely tool for a lot of non-creatives to express themselves and people to engage and take interest in cross-disciplinary learning. It’s also nice to see people simply express themselves with it (like the Ghibli selfies),” he said. However, D’mello also highlighted, “The problem for me arises when money gets involved. A ton of people and a lot of my close friends who rely on commissions for work have been deeply affected. The art community has been hurting for a while now, and it’s hard to witness the state at which our industry is in. It’s also unfair that revenue earned through AI (AI art specifically) is starting to concentrate within these few corporate companies, putting a ton of individual creative entrepreneurs at a big disadvantage.”
Harsh Saraiya, a film video editor, offered a nuanced take on AI’s role in creative fields. “It’s good and bad in both ways. Bad if you’re insecure about your work, and good if you know how to utilise it in your work.”
Role of AI in Animation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the animation industry, sparking debates over its potential benefits and drawbacks.
AI's ability to generate images and animations based on prompts has made it a powerful tool for artists and studios. Jourgen Dsouza, a professional in the field, embraces its potential, stating, "Let AI create everything as long as it depends on human imagination."
For concept artists and animators, this development presents opportunities to automate time-consuming tasks, such as rendering and character rigging, allowing them to focus on refining artistic vision. Despite its advancements, AI in animation is still in its infancy stages. D'mello, explains, "Despite AI having gotten pretty good at mimicry in the creative space, it still feels like it’s in its infancy. I know a lot of artists (myself included) would love to put it to practical and ethical use to speed up workflows and get better results, but the way it operates still makes it hard to use directly in our workflows."
He adds, "The reason I bring this up is that most material done for entertainment media is usually built from the ground up, and there’s a lot of deep intent that creates a conscious/subconscious lasting impression on the viewer. Copy-pasting or mimicking artwork based on prompts can only get so far."
For animation, where every design element plays a crucial role in storytelling, AI's limitations become apparent. D'mello further adds, "Production finds it hard to keep up with demand, and having systems automated would most certainly be a boon to our industry. Unfortunately, what we have now with AI’s systems isn’t what we expected it to be. That’s why artists are so upset about it (even those in favor of it). There are a lot of people trying to figure out how they could incorporate it into their workflows."
AI in Music
K-pop sensation SEVENTEEN embraced artificial intelligence in their latest music video for the lead single "MAESTRO." Band member Hoshi revealed at the album launch event, attended by ETimes, that AI-generated visuals played a key role in enhancing the video’s aesthetic appeal.
When asked if the group had used AI for songwriting or lyric composition, the siinger acknowledged experimenting with the technology. "I have tried, of course, because this is a technological development that we have to leverage, not just be dissatisfied with. I think it's something that we have to use along the way. So I practised using it, and I try to look for what's the good thing about it. What's the pros and cons of using AI? Technology is advancing so quickly, and what can we do to keep our identity intact? So this is something that I always ponder on, and I really love the music video for MAESTRO, because when we were working on it together with the film directors, the music video directors, we talked about the same thing, about the pros and cons of using AI and how we have to live with it."
While SEVENTEEN explored AI as a creative tool, Indian singer and Indian Idol judge Vishal Dadlani has strongly opposed its use in the visual arts. In response to the viral Studio Ghibli-style AI trend, Dadlani took to Instagram to denounce what he considers the unethical replication of an artist’s life’s work.
"Sorry, I'm not sharing any of the Studio Ghibli-style images you guys have made of or for me. I just can't bring myself to support AI’s plagiarization of an artist's life's work. Not to mention, the environmental horror that those images are. Please do NOT make any more. Thank you," he wrote.
The Future of AI in Films, Music and Art
The debate over AI’s role in music and art continues with some viewing it as a powerful tool for enhancing creativity, while others see it as a threat to originality.
Clayton D’mello weighed in on the larger implications and suggested, "In conclusion to all of that, I see it more as a trend for now flooding ‘instant gratification apps’—till we figure out how to put it to better and more ethical use. Even art runs out of style all the time."
He concludes with a thought-provoking question, "Would you pay to watch a film composed entirely of AI-generated shots for an hour today?"
The Ghibli AI Phenomenon
The AI-generated Ghibli-style trend has taken the internet by storm, rendering real-world images into whimsical pictures that look like they were frames from a Ghibli classic. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, encouraged users to stretch their creative limits by experimenting with their latest toolset. CEO Sam Altman even adopted a Ghibli-style avatar on social media platform X.
However, critics argue that this 'artificial'-driven art generation poses a serious threat to the originality and livelihood of human artists, an issue that legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki has spoken passionately about.
Miyazaki’s Outspoken Resistance to AI
Although Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli has not issued a formal statement, the artist's disdain for AI-generated animation is well-known.
Since Studio Ghibli is trending, worth noting the mind-boggling effort Hayao Miyazaki and his team put into a film.
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) March 26, 2025
Each has 60k-70k frames, all hand-drawn and painted with water color.
This 4-second clip (“The Wind Rises”) took one animator 15 months to do.
In the documentary… pic.twitter.com/BwvipsyVCl
In a 2016 documentary that went viral on social media, Miyazaki was shown an AI demo featuring a animation. The presenter suggested that the software could generate eerie, lifelike movements that human animators had never conceived. Reacting to the same, he said he was "utterly disgusted" by the display, as seen in the documentary footage.
Without mincing his words, Miyazaki said he would "never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all."
"I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself," he added.
AI vs Artists
The rise of aritficially-generated art has sparked larger discussions about its impact on traditional artists. Many fear that automation could strip creatives of their livelihood, much like industrial automation replaced manual labour in the past. Goro Miyazaki, the son of the legendary filmmaker and Studio Ghibli’s managing director, echoed these concerns, predicting 'Artificial intelligence risks taking Japanese anime artists' jobs but nothing can replicate Hayao Miyazaki.'
Studio Ghibli is the true definition of art ✨ pic.twitter.com/MTZ7ApFJJW
— Anime Aesthetics (@anime_twits) March 31, 2025
The studio behind classics such as "Spirited Away", "My Neighbor Totoro", "Howl's Moving Castle", "Ponyo", "Grave of the Fireflies" and more, has yet to comment on the image trend, but Goro said to AFP, "It wouldn't be surprising if, in two years' time, there was a film made completely through AI." However, he noted that whether audiences would want to watch a fully AI-generated animation was another matter.
Despite the rapid changes, new technology also brings "great potential for unexpected talent to emerge", added Goro.
Fears of technological enhancements are not new. The journey of film and animation has been a remarkable one, evolving from rudimentary drawings to multi-million dollar digital productions. What began as a series of still images presented in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion, soon developed in the late 19th century with the Lumière brothers ushering in the projected motion pictures to be viewed by audiences. Animation soon followed, with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), becoming the first feature-length animated film. The transition from film reels to digital formats marked another significant shift in the industry. The introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI), visual effects (VFX) and 3D, opened up the audiences to an immersive film experiene.
AI In Movies
Amidst the buzz around the possibilities of AI and its tools, a video from the documentary “10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki”, doing the rounds online shed light on the mind-boggling efforts Miyazaki's team put into a film. As mentioned in a tweet, "Each has 60k-70k frames, all hand-drawn and painted with watercolour. This 4-second clip from “The Wind Rises” took one animator 15 months to do."
This four second crowd scene from Studio Ghibli’s The Wind Rises (2013) took animator Eiji Yamamori 1 year and 3 months to complete pic.twitter.com/RyOngP2o60
— Anime Aesthetics (@anime_twits) March 27, 2025
In contrast, another tweet, shared a 1.52 minute trailer of The Lord of the Rings in an animated format. "What if Studio Ghibli directed Lord of the Rings?" AI Filmmaker PJ Ace asked. He went on to say, "I spent $250 in Kling credits and 9 hours re-editing the Fellowship trailer to bring that vision to life—and I’ll show you exactly how I did it."
What if Studio Ghibli directed Lord of the Rings?
— PJ Ace (@PJaccetturo) March 27, 2025
I spent $250 in Kling credits and 9 hours re-editing the Fellowship trailer to bring that vision to life—and I’ll show you exactly how I did it 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/IqUeBSH4H0
Ace's post only highlights Hollywood actor-director Ben Affleck's recent comments calling AI a "craftsman at best." During his interview at 2024 CNBC Delivering Alpha investor summit, the "Batman" star declared, “Movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI.”
While insisting "Nothing new is created" with AI, he explained, “What AI is going to do is dis-intermediate the more laborious, less creative, and more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people want to make ‘Good Will Huntings’ to go out and make it."
The Brutalist: "The Brutalist," an Oscar-nominated film, sparked controversy for its use of AI to refine the dialogues by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, raising questions about authenticity and transparency in filmmaking. Director Brady Corbet issued a statement, which explained that AI audio technology Respeecher “was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed.” He defended his lead actors' performances saying, “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”
Speaking at a roundtable discussion attended by ETimes, Felicity Jones addressed the growing excitement—and concern—surrounding AI in filmmaking. “In the sort of face of things like AI, which everyone’s all getting all very excited about, I think really, you know, the idea of things that still feel human and still feel real, we as human beings are going to… Yeah, gravitate towards that,” Jones said. “As much as AI is a wonderful novelty, it doesn’t— I think we should be careful not to slip into the idea that it’s the answer to things, you know. The answer to things is right here in the people that we are, and yeah, we’ve got to be careful with, particularly with technology, I think.”
Respeecher was also credited in the post-production of "Emilia Pérez", while another AI tool, AudioShake, was employed to isolate opera singer Maria Callas’ vocals from 1960s in the biopic "Maria". Rising Sun's machine-learning technology was also used in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis to integrate actor Austin Butler into archival footage of Elvis Presley.
Hollywood veteran Tom Hanks also defended AI’s role in digital de-ageing, a technology used in his upcoming film "Here", directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film, spans 100 years in a single living room, requiring Hanks and co-star Robin Wright to appear decades younger in certain scenes. “We knew that this supercomputer was going to do all the work of six months of postproduction in a nanosecond,” Hanks told Radio Times. “So we shot the scenes at Pinewood and we could look at them immediately.”
Wright acknowledged the software's growing influence but expressed concerns about ethical implications, “It’s happening already. People are using AI without consent and creating actors saying things they never said. So this isn’t new. That’s the scary part.”
Ethics, Morals, and the Impact on Artists
The increasing use of AI in creative industries has prompted ethical concerns, particularly regarding fair compensation for artists. Clayton D’mello, a digital artist, sees AI as a valuable tool for non-creatives but warns of its negative impact on professional artists.
“I personally think AI is a lovely tool for a lot of non-creatives to express themselves and people to engage and take interest in cross-disciplinary learning. It’s also nice to see people simply express themselves with it (like the Ghibli selfies),” he said. However, D’mello also highlighted, “The problem for me arises when money gets involved. A ton of people and a lot of my close friends who rely on commissions for work have been deeply affected. The art community has been hurting for a while now, and it’s hard to witness the state at which our industry is in. It’s also unfair that revenue earned through AI (AI art specifically) is starting to concentrate within these few corporate companies, putting a ton of individual creative entrepreneurs at a big disadvantage.”
Harsh Saraiya, a film video editor, offered a nuanced take on AI’s role in creative fields. “It’s good and bad in both ways. Bad if you’re insecure about your work, and good if you know how to utilise it in your work.”
Role of AI in Animation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the animation industry, sparking debates over its potential benefits and drawbacks.
AI's ability to generate images and animations based on prompts has made it a powerful tool for artists and studios. Jourgen Dsouza, a professional in the field, embraces its potential, stating, "Let AI create everything as long as it depends on human imagination."
For concept artists and animators, this development presents opportunities to automate time-consuming tasks, such as rendering and character rigging, allowing them to focus on refining artistic vision. Despite its advancements, AI in animation is still in its infancy stages. D'mello, explains, "Despite AI having gotten pretty good at mimicry in the creative space, it still feels like it’s in its infancy. I know a lot of artists (myself included) would love to put it to practical and ethical use to speed up workflows and get better results, but the way it operates still makes it hard to use directly in our workflows."
He adds, "The reason I bring this up is that most material done for entertainment media is usually built from the ground up, and there’s a lot of deep intent that creates a conscious/subconscious lasting impression on the viewer. Copy-pasting or mimicking artwork based on prompts can only get so far."
For animation, where every design element plays a crucial role in storytelling, AI's limitations become apparent. D'mello further adds, "Production finds it hard to keep up with demand, and having systems automated would most certainly be a boon to our industry. Unfortunately, what we have now with AI’s systems isn’t what we expected it to be. That’s why artists are so upset about it (even those in favor of it). There are a lot of people trying to figure out how they could incorporate it into their workflows."
AI in Music
K-pop sensation SEVENTEEN embraced artificial intelligence in their latest music video for the lead single "MAESTRO." Band member Hoshi revealed at the album launch event, attended by ETimes, that AI-generated visuals played a key role in enhancing the video’s aesthetic appeal.
When asked if the group had used AI for songwriting or lyric composition, the siinger acknowledged experimenting with the technology. "I have tried, of course, because this is a technological development that we have to leverage, not just be dissatisfied with. I think it's something that we have to use along the way. So I practised using it, and I try to look for what's the good thing about it. What's the pros and cons of using AI? Technology is advancing so quickly, and what can we do to keep our identity intact? So this is something that I always ponder on, and I really love the music video for MAESTRO, because when we were working on it together with the film directors, the music video directors, we talked about the same thing, about the pros and cons of using AI and how we have to live with it."
While SEVENTEEN explored AI as a creative tool, Indian singer and Indian Idol judge Vishal Dadlani has strongly opposed its use in the visual arts. In response to the viral Studio Ghibli-style AI trend, Dadlani took to Instagram to denounce what he considers the unethical replication of an artist’s life’s work.
"Sorry, I'm not sharing any of the Studio Ghibli-style images you guys have made of or for me. I just can't bring myself to support AI’s plagiarization of an artist's life's work. Not to mention, the environmental horror that those images are. Please do NOT make any more. Thank you," he wrote.
The Future of AI in Films, Music and Art
The debate over AI’s role in music and art continues with some viewing it as a powerful tool for enhancing creativity, while others see it as a threat to originality.
Clayton D’mello weighed in on the larger implications and suggested, "In conclusion to all of that, I see it more as a trend for now flooding ‘instant gratification apps’—till we figure out how to put it to better and more ethical use. Even art runs out of style all the time."
He concludes with a thought-provoking question, "Would you pay to watch a film composed entirely of AI-generated shots for an hour today?"
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