This past weekend, I was lucky enough to be able to go to a re-screening of “Princess Mononoke,” one of the masterpieces of Studio Ghibli and an incredible film overall. The La Crosse movie theater I headed to was somewhat empty, with around 10 people total at the showing, and as soon as I left the venue, I went into Instagram stories and saw multiple people use AI to create images with the same style of the animation studio, ranging from memes to photos with loved ones. What does AI usage mean for entertainment, arts, and most importantly, humanity?
Anyone who has been anywhere near the internet in the past years can tell the boom and uprise that AI has had with the release of ChatGPT being one of the biggest breakthroughs and trend-setters in technology from the past decade. When many of us first heard about the uses and help ChatGPT can provide to people, it was quite scary as it is a process that keeps up on upgrading itself, but I saw it as an opportunity to be more of a companion or helper for repetitive tasks, as well as an essential tool if used correctly. What I did not expect was the complete disregard for the arts and creativity from many of the users who realized that images and videos could be created.
It is very frequent to see posts on social media about these subjects, such as trailers of an entire movie created purely by AI, a photo of your friend that has an AI Studio Ghibli filter on top of it or advertisements for brands generated by a machine with no soul. It is quite easy to see all of these subjects and not see it as a big issue, and even as a fun hobby to pass time and investigate. How can something so available to us and that takes so short amount of time to generate be destructive?
As with almost everything harmful to the world, it is not one small act that is bad, but the mere quantity of it. To start, the environmental damage that creating these images involves should be extremely worrying, especially considering that we are harming the environment for images we will never care about and do not mean anything. The portrait of yourself as an AI individual does not carry any emotional value and will be kept in your gallery after being part of one of the reasons why artificial intelligence uses millions of liters of water.
Secondly, what does art mean if not something created by the human soul? There has always been a large discussion about when art loses its value and becomes something unworthy in certain contexts. Is something not human when it uses an electronic tool such as Autotune or when it does not evoke any feeling in the audience? This area has all the important questions, but the only answer we have is that anything generated by AI can’t be art and especially can’t have a soul. Seeing the tremendous amount of work put into Princess Mononoke, with artists, voice actors, animators, and writers all joining to create a beautiful piece of media, should be something that humanity should try to continue doing, and not simplify it into a style that you can paste on top of your images.
Finally, what makes a difference and is one of the most ethical problems with AI is the erasing of creative fields and plagiarism. Studio Ghibli’s co-creator Hayao Miyazaki called AI “an insult to life itself,” while the art style is, even though clumsily done, available for all people with no effort put into it. Animation, especially, has been a very overworked and underpaid sector of entertainment, with a clear example being the Spider-Verse films, and now it will only be less and less as administration will try to cut corners by using AI.
Instead of quickly creating an image and trying to give it to your significant other, you can commission a local or small artist online. Instead of creating specific prompts to create an item, you can try to draw it. Practice is what makes perfect, and allowing a robot to take control of our creative intake will only continue to have damaging effects on the community, creativity, and the perception of art.
