OpenAI’s newest picture generator has sparked a social media development the place customers add photos and ask ChatGPT to remodel them into a particular anime fashion pioneered by Japanese animation firm Studio Ghibli.
Now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that the viral use of ChatGPT for Studio Ghibli-style photos has change into so well-liked that it’s overwhelming the corporate’s AI servers.
The development began on Tuesday, when OpenAI launched its 4o picture creator, its “most superior picture generator but,” constructing it into ChatGPT for paying and free plans.
Customers rapidly found that ChatGPT’s new picture generator may replicate the Studio Ghibli anime fashion, characterised by muted colours and vivid particulars, seen in well-liked movies like “Spirited Away” and “The Boy and the Heron.”
ChatGPT customers flooded social media with these photos earlier this week, remodeling household portraits, replicating memes, and producing video clips of The Workplace.
great alpha proper now in sending your spouse pictures of yall transformed to studio ghibli anime pic.twitter.com/FROszdFSfN
— Grant Slatton (@GrantSlatton) March 25, 2025
It has been 24 hours since OpenAI unexpectedly shook the AI picture world with 4o picture technology.
Listed here are the 14 most mindblowing examples thus far (100% AI-generated):
1. Studio ghibli fashion memespic.twitter.com/E38mBnPnQh
— Barsee ? (@heyBarsee) March 26, 2025
Presenting The Workplace x Studio Ghibli pic.twitter.com/nHYrGc2uDs
— Justine Moore (@venturetwins) March 27, 2025
Nonetheless, Altman said in a submit on X on Thursday that whereas it was “tremendous enjoyable seeing individuals love” ChatGPT photos, the huge quantity of picture technology was overloading OpenAI’s servers.
“Our GPUs are melting,” Altman wrote. GPUs, or graphics processing models, are specialised processors that energy AI duties.
Altman wrote within the submit that OpenAI would briefly restrict the variety of photos customers may generate, with free customers allowed a most of three photos. He additionally modified his profile image on X to a Studio Ghibli-style picture of himself.
it is tremendous enjoyable seeing individuals love photos in chatgpt.
however our GPUs are melting.
we’re going to briefly introduce some charge limits whereas we work on making it extra environment friendly. hopefully will not be lengthy!
chatgpt free tier will get 3 generations per day quickly.
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 27, 2025
However it may not all be AI enjoyable.
The co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, is famously very anti-AI. After seeing an AI-generated animation in 2016, Miyazaki mentioned he would “by no means want” to combine AI into his work.
“I strongly really feel that that is an insult to life itself,” he mentioned, on the time.
In accordance with the 2020 documentary “10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki,” Miyazaki and his crew created 60,000 to 70,000 frames for a film, every hand-drawn and painted with watercolor. A four-second clip within the 2013 film “The Wind Rises” required 15 months of effort from one animator.
Some social media customers objected to ChatGPT producing photos within the fashion of Studio Ghibli, writing on X that AI would by no means be capable of replicate the emotion and depth current in human-made artwork from the studio. Others mentioned that OpenAI stole the studio’s paintings and is now profiting with out compensating or in search of permission from the studio.
The development “is an insult” to Miyazaki, one consumer wrote in a submit on X.
A whole lot of creatives not too long ago voiced considerations about OpenAI and different AI corporations coaching their programs on copyrighted items. Earlier this month, greater than 400 Hollywood actors and filmmakers filed feedback with the Trump administration‘s Workplace of Science and Know-how Coverage, pushing again towards OpenAI and Google lobbying to coach their AI on copyrighted work. Final 12 months, musicians like Jon Bon Jovi and Billie Eilish signed an open letter talking out towards the usage of AI within the music business.
OpenAI reportedly cannot resolve if Studio Ghibli-style photos violate copyright.
In accordance with Enterprise Insider, as of Thursday, the free model of ChatGPT blocks customers from producing Ghibli-style photos as a result of Ghibli “is a copyrighted animation studio, and its creative fashion is protected.” Nonetheless, the paid model of ChatGPT, with plans starting from $20 to $200 per thirty days, churns out these photos with no downside.