It’s been a rough week for Studio Ghibli fans. Last week, OpenAI released their GPT-4o update, which includes a new feature that lets users convert images into a mock-Ghibli aesthetic, resulting in a torrent of Ghiblified slop.
Over on OpenAISea.com they underline that this isn’t an “official collaboration between OpenAI and Studio Ghibli” (duh) but that the model has been “trained on an extensive dataset of artistic styles, enabling it to remarkably recreate the Studio Ghibli aesthetic”. I.e., they stole it.