Last week, social media platforms were avalanched under instantly-generated images shared by people using the Artificial Intelligence programme ChatGPT to turn their photographs into mock illustrations in Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s signature Studio Ghibli style.
All over the world, celebrities and institutions also jumped on the trend. One Kollywood star shared a “photoshoot” of generated images. The Israel Defense Forces, presently committing war crimes in Palestine, posted cutesy images of its military. The White House shared one of a weeping person being arrested by an anti-immigration taskforce. Less sinisterly but no less problematically, the Bengaluru Traffic Police used the aesthetic in a new campaign against bike stunts.
There are two serious problems with this trend, no matter who is using it. One is about the environment: AI has a proven detrimental effect, due to the huge quantities of water, minerals and electricity needed for it, as well as the waste it produces. The other is about art: it disrespects Miyazaki’s work and ethical standpoint (anti-fascist, anti-war, pro-nature) both in form and in feeling.
By generating in seconds what takes days, weeks or months of execution and years of practice for a human being to put together, the value of art and art-making are themselves cheapened.
An incredibly hollow argument that is making the rounds is that AI makes art accessible. Two things are meant by this: creating it, and owning it.
Let’s be clear that desire as well as physical and cognitive ability are enough to make art, for anyone. Committing to art-making professionally, whether or not one can make a living from it (one usually
cannot) is different. Without denying systemic limitations –— such as, for instance Brahminical gatekeeping of classical dance or music, higher education requirements where applicable, funding constraints on mediums like filmmaking, or location-bound access to certain scenes and industries — in principle, artmaking as personal expression with or without external validation has always been accessible, throughout human civilisation, using rudimentary or modern tools or one’s own body or mind. With AI, we have an extremely sophisticated tool: but it is one with immense costs.
As for the subject of owning art, it may seem like a quaint thought, but only the maker of a piece should actually own it. The rest of us can only care for it, perhaps in the form of merchandise for which the creator is compensated fairly. The concept of ownership beyond that is flawed. Similar to how personal artistic expression cannot be curtailed, neither can art appreciation. The truth is that objects of beauty are also in the quotidian: in curtains, for example, or in mugs. If you care about art, no matter what your level of privilege, it will show in your aesthetic, in your appreciation of pots and the plants in them, of sunrises and moonglow, of music, of anything that stirs your soul. It will be evident in all the small things you surround yourself with, and what you choose to consume — ordinary cinemas and government museums offer easy ways to imbibe art, for instance. Disdain for Nature and her keepers and for art and its makers are intertwined. This Ghiblification debacle exemplifies this.