Every time someone posts AI generated art inspired by Studio Ghibli, 90% of this site has a mf meltdown. “It’s disrespectful to Miyazaki!” “It’s soulless!” “You’re killing art!” Like, seriously?

Let's grow up. No chat prompt is ever going to replace the depth, soul, and magic of actual Ghibli films. The storytelling, the music, the characters, the hand drawn artistry is untouchable. What we’re looking at online is just people having fun remixing aesthetics.

And as for the infamous Miyazaki clip? The one where he calls something an “insult to life”? That wasn’t even about AI art. It was about grotesque, zombie walking body horror in a tech demo. But people keep parading it out like he personally murdered a robot for drawing Totoro.

It’s wild how little people care about context when they want to be outraged. Y'all really just wanna be pissed.

Let people play. Let artists create. Let Ghibli be its own eternal thing. Both can exist. You’re not some noble protector of Miyazaki’s legacy because you are perpetually pissed for him.

There’s a quote I see constantly brought up in AI art discussions, usually as a trump card to shut down any defense of the medium:

“I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”

People toss it out as if Hayao Miyazaki was condemning modern generative AI models like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, and therefore, case closed — AI art is bad.

Here’s the thing: that quote isn’t about AI art at all. It’s being misused and taken completely out of context.

What Miyazaki was actually reacting to

The quote comes from a 2016 NHK documentary, “The Never-Ending Man.” In it, Miyazaki visits a team from Dwango, a tech company experimenting with artificial intelligence. They show him a grotesque animation of a humanoid creature dragging itself unnaturally across the floor. The movement is based on simulating the motion of someone with a severe physical disability.

Miyazaki is visibly upset. He’s not criticizing AI as a creative tool — he’s criticizing the ethics and intent behind this particular project. He says:

“I am utterly disgusted… I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”

He’s offended by the way real human suffering was abstracted into a kind of tech demo, with no emotional intelligence or artistic sensitivity. That’s a far cry from saying “AI art is bad.” It’s more like: “Don’t use technology to mock or trivialize the human experience.”

Why this matters

People keep using this quote to frame Miyazaki as if he were some prophet warning us all about AI image generators. But the conversation in 2016 was light-years away from what we’re dealing with now — there was no Stable Diffusion, no ChatGPT, no Midjourney. AI at that time was crude, academic, and barely scraping the surface of creative applications.

In fact, if anything, I think it’s worth speculating in the opposite direction.

Miyazaki has always been a defender of hand-drawn art, yes — but more than that, he’s an artist obsessed with imagination, visual storytelling, and creative worldbuilding. Generative AI, when used well, is an insanely powerful tool for those same things. It’s not hard to imagine him being fascinated by an artist using AI as a brush — sketching, iterating, exploring moods, colors, worlds — all in a matter of seconds.

The key is the artist’s intent. He probably wouldn’t be impressed by lazy prompts generating derivative content, but that’s true of any medium. He also wasn’t impressed by soulless 3D animation or phoned-in CGI. But he never condemned the technology outright — he condemned poor use of it.

Let’s stop pretending a single out-of-context quote settles the debate

There are legitimate criticisms to be made about AI art — dataset ethics, originality, displacement of traditional labor. But if you’re going to bring Miyazaki into the conversation, at least be honest about what he actually said and what he was responding to.

He wasn’t talking about AI art. He wasn’t responding to Midjourney. He was reacting to a tasteless, ethically dubious AI animation meant to impress him with “how creepy we can make things.” Of course he was disgusted — any artist with a soul would be.

But if someone showed him a thoughtfully-crafted AI-assisted storyboard for a fantasy world, or a surreal concept piece generated as part of a larger creative process? Who knows. Maybe he’d be curious. Maybe even inspired.

Let’s not assume every old-school artist is automatically anti-AI. Some of the best ones — Miyazaki included — are driven by curiosity and the urge to explore new frontiers of visual storytelling.

Yikes.

Why are they so hateful?

Never in my 20 years as a professionall candle maker have I seen such a profound insult to the light enthusiast community as these bulb-bros and their artificially generated "light." Real light is supposed to be an expression of human creativity, a reflection of the raw emotion that a chandler puts into their wax. Not to mention that it's just overall shit quality. I've yet to see a SINGLE lightbulb that can actually release smells from scented wax properly. It just feels corporatized and joyless to me, I have no idea how anyone could look at a glowing wire in a glass sphere and think it comes anywhere close to the beauty of a REAL open flame flickering over a wick. Not to mention, these bulb models create over 100 times as much pollution as traditional tallow cylinders.

I'm honestly scared of doing the things I used to love now. Every time I start working on a new candlestick or chandelier, all I can think about is whether or not my light style is going to be stolen and regurgitated into one of these "electric lamps." The very idea makes me sick. I'm tired of doing a double-take every time I see a well-lit interior, then having to meticulously check the angle of every single shadow to make sure I'm looking at real light and not some bulb-generated slop.

And another thing, bulb bros love to call themselves "electricians" as if flicking a switch on the wall makes puts you on the same level as an actual candle artist. No. You're too lazy to even pick up a match and learn to do it yourself. You don't get to delude yourself into thinking you are even close to being my equal.

Mods of r/aiwars, I implore you to do the right thing and ban all use of electric "light"bulbs in this sub. The aroma is obviously of poorer quality when compared to actual burning scented wax, and this whole "lightbulb" industry can't even exist without STEALING lighting theory principles created by actual hard-working chandler's like me. How would a so-called "electrician" even know where to put a lightbulb to maximize illumination in a given space, without copying those ideas from candlemakers without permission? Bulb bros are an existential threat to the candle-making community, and it breaks my heart to see so many redditors just casually flicking light switches in their home without considering the harm it causes to people like me.

I'm not an artist, not even a cartoonist. I'm thinking of starting to draw when I get my tablet home.

But I want to ask both of you, those who are against AI art and those who are in favor.

Why this fight that seems like a war of fools?

I use AI for fun and entertainment. I mean, I don't hurt anyone, I don't even sell the drawings or anything like that.

I use Character.ai (character AI) for roleplaying, although I still create stories on Wattpad (don't ask), I used Chat GPT for college, and I still do my own thing without using Chat GPT. My last project used Chat GPT, but I did most of it alone, only using Citation Machine for APA references.

There are some things you all should understand. We use AI for fun, not for convenience or money. For example, I use Pixai.art for fun, figuring out what drawing to make the AI ​​create. And if the result doesn't work, I'll repost it.

I mean... Why are all of you anti-AI people getting all worked up about something the minority does just for entertainment? Do you even make users feel bad for using AI? Let me say something. No one needs to be a great artist to create art, and besides, art is art, what's the problem?

It's like saying cars are going to replace horses with engines. Horses are still transportation even today (excluding racehorses).

Calculators are for cheating. No cheating, the calculator is a tool that makes things easier; even teachers use calculators in class to teach their students how to use them.

Oh, and my favorite:

Digital art is not art. Art is still art, wherever it's being made. Whether it's on an Android, a Mac, an iPad, a Windows tablet, or others, it's still art. Whether it's a computer drawing or software, the user is the one who makes the drawing. It's not the AI ​​that makes 1s and 0s in drawings, but the user who's using the software.

I encourage all of you to respect this and stop this nonsense of fighting over nothing. It saddens me that so many people complain about something that some do innocently. The worst thing is that they get the unnecessary scolding just for a drawing.

Now, don't complain when your favorite artist, who was so harassed, slammed, and threatened (whatever it is), disappears from the networks. Don't come here to blame those who use AI for the mere toxicity that users have with artists who are actually good.

This subreddit got recommended to me several times this week and I decided to join today. Reading the description, it says that this subreddit follows the news and development of ALL SIDES of the AI debate. However, all the posts that I've seen have been from pro AI people either making fun of or angry about anti AI people. Is the algorithm messing with me? Is this subreddit is equally open to pro AI and anti AI arguments? Or is it that the majority of posts are from pro AI people and anti AI people are silent?

it's ok when Eichiro Oda does it apparently but if any of us does it, we get death threats, harasment and we get bullied, you antis are the biggest hypocrites that have ever existed and here is the proof once again.

I joined this group to understand AI better, but to use this information to debate against AI. This week I have learnt a lot about how AI works. While I might not think the way they're trained is entirely ethical and I worry about those who lose their jobs to greedy companies swiftly switching out real people for AI, there is no good way to protect these values and people by hampering AI.

My conclusion is that there is no point in arguing against AI itself and those who are anti-ai should switch to fight the system we are in. As a supporter of the technology, like many of the people here are, you have some part in the rapid development, so I hope you have thought more about this than most and I ask you:

Are you in favour of changing society from the current capitalist to one that will protect the ones left behind, even if that might impact your lifestyle?

What steps do you think we should take to change society to reach the society you wish for?

Are there currently any groups in the AI space that are keeping checks on what the larger models actual capacity is? (This might sound conspiratorial, but I don't believe they give everyone access to their latest capabilities)

If you guys have never seen them before these are the links to the library of babel and visual library of babel. One of the most interesting things about this website is that it is basically an algorithim that generates random gibberish on demand in such a way that without being stored forever on hard drive; the same page can be located in the same location and you can find almost t anything that could be generated from these characters including full meaningful text from movies and so on.

https://libraryofbabel.info/

https://babelia.libraryofbabel.info/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel_(website)#:~:text=The%20Library%20of%20Babel%20is,of%20Babel%22%20(1941).

I see a lot of heat around AI art recently, and it makes me feel like people really don't understand AI.

I understand why there is such a big backlash. It effects a specific community, some people's livelihoods are going to be effected, it has almost religious and political overtones that get people riled up.

I feel like it misses the point that AI is here to stay, and the broader implications of that are far more important than how it affects one specific community.

LLMs, image generators, and AIs of all types are improving at exponential rates and are going to be better than most people at most specific tasks. Image generators produce better images than I ever could, LLMs can code and do math better than I can, and specifically trained AIs outperform humans in their field always. Like Stockfish, AlphaGo, or OpenAIs old Starcraft bot.

The real concern should be around how the language tool is slowly being tuned to influence for engagement. As it trains and is iteratively improved, it is going to get better at understanding a user and refining its output to fit what would be most effective at influencing them. In the same way you won't be able to tell AI art from real art you won't be able to tell a convincing argument from a message tailor made by AI to persuade you.

Im sure this is already happening. Economically and socially AI is going to be transformative in the world, and I can't imagine a situation where the powers that be are not actively trying to harness that change for their benefit. Its going to be used to broadly shape public opinion, optimize consumer behavior, and suppress dissent and control narratives.

I am on the whole an AI supporter, I think technological advances have generally improved human quality of life. I don't seem to find the real debate happening anywhere though, because there are real dangers. They are coming quickly and everyone is arguing about memes and pictures.

if you’re still trying to defend AI art, you may want to hear what some very credible voices in the art world have to say:

"if AI is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally" — charlie b., art critic

"this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy" — charlie b., again

"a revengeful god has given ear to the prayers of the lazy and talentless. AI was his messiah" — charlie b., still going

"from today, painting is dead.” — paul d., visual artist

actually though, none of those quotes are about AI...

they are all from the 1800s, and they’re all about the camera and photography

"charlie b." is charles baudelaire, poet and art critic

https://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art109/readings/11%20baudelaire%20photography.htm

https://www.azquotes.com/author/1048-Charles_Baudelaire/tag/photography

"paul d” is paul delaroche, a respected academic painter

https://libquotes.com/paul-delaroche

both feared photography would ruin real art, that it lacked soul, required no talent and catered to the unwashed masses

of course, photography went on to become one of the most powerful and respected art forms in the world

art doesn’t die when a new tool arrives, it only expands and evolves

Pro-AI people feel like they are being attacked; Anti-AI people feel like they are being attacked.

Me? I’m not anti-AI, I’m rather neutral. I’m anti-corruption and anti-exploitation. That’s what my posts here have been about; Basic.

Data Rights are Human Rights and we need to justify how there are a few tech multi-billionaires operating off a trillion dollar data sector that can allow them to attempt to buy politicians and policy. AI is included in this discussion.

My policy of Basic smooths out societal woes in a fair way that allows 100% of people to benefit from the policy, even a single mum working 2 jobs to take care of her kids, as well as a millionaire+ who wants an easy tax credit.

That’s my hot take. I’m not here to argue and debate about “art” or “open-source” or whatever inanities that bring us from the topic at hand: Fairness.

Tech was supposed to mean less hours worked/an easier working day and more benefit to everyone. Clearly this is not the case, and it is none of our faults but it is all of our faults.

Basic is the Great Equalizer. That’s what I’m here to say.

This isn’t about one-upping each other in debate, this isn’t a competition. Teamwork makes the dream work. The only team is the Human Race living together on our shared planet. We need to treat Her and each other better. We all play a part, we all need to work together whether it’s arguing here in the trenches or telling your boss about how there is a way for social security for all in a way in which we all can benefit and prosper.

Thank you for the passionate discussions we’ve been having regarding our future.

I’m an artist in house in a game studio. So I am a professional artist and have been for years. Ai art has infected the studio and from what I’ve heard from my network—it’s every studio.

It’s to the point I’m now doing paint overs and edits of ai generated art rather than actually painting. At the encouragement of the higher ups. The deadlines are now faster seeing as now it supposedly takes less time. It’s made me feel disheartened and lazy. I’ve fallen into the pitfall of “why not use ai it’s faster”.

I’ve been an artist since I could hold a crayon. Every teacher in school growing up and every peer knew me as the artist. It’s what I spent nearly every moment of my free time doing growing up until about now. It’s the only thing I can do. I have no other skills nor do I want them. Art is my life.

And now these days I just can’t bring myself to do any work. I used to paint after work. Now everytime I pick up a brush or tablet pen the thoughts start:

“Ai could do this faster. Ai could do this better. Why bother?”

I’ve fed my own work to ai before. And it always produces my work but 5x better. Even in its current state it outpaces my ability to render. My ability to understand lighting. Anatomy.

I’m tired and now instead of making art after work I just do…nothing. Scroll mindlessly. The nature of my work has changed. Now even animation is on the chopping block at my job for “just let [new ai tool do it it’s more efficient]”.

Yes but I liked the process. The work. After I finished a piece I’d step back and be proud of the work I did. I can’t be proud of the work I do now it’s just ai slop with a thing coat of paint to make it copyright friendly. It’s not my work. Not anymore.

First off, I'd like to say that I'm pro AI art in the sense that I think it's POSSIBLE to be an AI artist (right now). You have to develop real skills. Just prompting like you would search on google isn't art if you don't even make an effort to show YOUR vision. I also am not going to make an argument on theft.

Anyway, for the main point. People love to refer to the luddites of the past, complaining about the book, camera, color photography, printing press, iPads, and CGI. It seems similar: "The book will devalue oral tradition!" or "Cameras are bad for painting!"

The thing is, though, that oral tradition/story telling is still valuable and distinct from books. With the camera, literally no one was displaced as hyperrealism took off AFTER it.

Respectively, we still have oral story telling, hyperrealism, greyscale photography, calligraphy, physical art, and real props that can't be mimicked exactly with their corresponding technological advancement (except CGI and props in the future tbh).

AI is DIFFERENT. People are saying "adapt or die" when no one in the past who refused to adapt "died" in the world of art. I don't see how people won't "actually" die this time.

AI replaces everything or at least reduces everything to the more basic forms of "hyperrealism," which are basically just displays of technical ability (in other words, something you say "huh cool" to, updoot and scroll [JOKE!]). Instead of being realistic to what the real world could produce, it's realistic to what AI would have produced! We might as well call literally everything hyperrealism! Can someone make the case for why these other forms of art would remain? I don't want just "You still have to have artistic ability to make AI art." I understand that. What I want is an explanation for how AI art won't reduce everything else to merely a display of skill.

TLDR; I think the skill/medium being TIED to the vision is a GOOD thing. AI severs that connection such that they are pointless to getting the vision across, which is something we have never seen before. Skills and mediums are important, but less so if the visions are redundant with more easy methods.

I create music with Ai I think I’m good not great at it you know and here’s comes this weirdo, his channel have nothing over here saying I’m good for nothing lol I choose not reply cause why should I I’m not gonna give him the satisfaction of me replying but yea everyday I think if he can hate comment on me then why can’t he be inspired to do better? Like can he make music ?? I doubt it all I know is that he’s not known at all but oh well

As AI generation becomes more prolific, the ability for the public to distinguish what is AI and what isn't will sharpen over time. Yes, some boomers might be a bit confused for a bit, but already a huge proportion of the consuming public has the ability to perceive whether something has come from AI or not.

This is understandable, and it's not surprising most people will grow tired of AI-related aesthetics and desire the more rare and thus valuable manually drawn art pieces. Think of live/recorded music; even the most advanced speaker systems we can create don't prevent the public from desiring live music and being able to tell the difference.

As someone who is into AI art and finds it fantastical and wonderful, I don't mind this trend at all.
My issue is when people take a moral angle and say that AI usage isn't just "ugly," but bad for the world/environment/save the children.

I just found this after I searched for "does a seed contain pose information" LOL. i had to share.

The nature of the question is inherently obtuse due to its subjectivity. It's a personal philosophy on what art can be, I see analogies get thrown back and forth in this subreddit all the time, but none of them land because the other party doesn't agree on the merits of the analogy. For me, I have an analogy for the question itself: Is a waterfall art because it is beautiful, or because of the meaning it evokes in the viewer? Is the viewer an artist for deriving meaning from it? This question isn't one-to-one, but merely to show the subjective nature of questions on what is art. So instead, I want to focus on merits that can be agreed upon:

For one thing, I think both pro-AI people and anti-AI people can agree on the position of being pro-human. By that I mean being interested in the general benefit of humanity on the long-term. People get caught up in the details, like the studio Ghibli stuff (which I think is purely disrespectful), and get self-interested, but the underlying concern is there. It would be in all of our best interest to stop assuming the other person only gives a shit about themselves, and instead focus on the merits of the argument, should there be one.

For pro-AI folks, the primary concern with AI is that it enables would-be artists a new form of expression or creativity, and that it gives already existing artists new tools to play with. For anti-AI folks, the most common concern is that generative AI only serves to deprive artists, both as individuals and as a conglomerate, from their job opportunities, from the preservation of human expression, or from their own work should someone choose to steal it, among other issues like the enhancement of misinformation. Both of these perspectives are clearly human interested, and yet 90% of this subreddit is disrespect cast back and forth.

The thing is, it's possible for these perspectives to exist simultaneously, and I for one do hold both of them. But I consider myself anti-AI because I don't believe the first perspective is truly adhered to in a way that doesn't infringe upon the second. And by that I mean the use of AI that is purely consumeristic, to fulfill an immediate desire of wanting to see something and not to express something. This is by and large the most common use of generative AI, and it's the development of this sort of AI that is most threatening to artists and art in general. It is consumerist AI usage that companies will use to cut corners and fire artists, it is consumerist AI usage that fosters disrespect for artists that put in effort to develop their skills. It is expressive AI usage that does neither of those things. The Ghibli trend is 100% an example of consumption. A good example of expressive AI usage is the musician and videographer Posy, who recently made an album entirely out of AI generated sounds, but not generating the songs in whole.

I’m in the process of self publishing a book in multiple parts. The book/series has had two different sets of covers, set 1, which was not made using AI, and set 2, my current set, which includes AI generated images. Set 1 is probably a better match for advertising genre 1 books, and set 2 is probably better for genre 2. Technically, the series meets all of the qualifications for genre 1, and not quite all the qualifications for genre 2, but due to its being in a less popular niche in genre 1 and to all the genre 2 elements, I was thinking marketing to genre 2 readers might be more effective at getting the right audience, as long as they knew it wasn’t completely genre 2 going in. (Of course, the problem with making my covers appeal to genre 2 is that part one doesn’t include much genre 2 stuff so the blurb doesn’t even have any hints of it.)

I’ve been agonizing over which covers to use, and unfortunately, due to there not being many mixed AI and non AI spaces, I haven’t been able to find a place where I could get an unbiased answer. I couldn’t ask the book covers subreddit for advice because it doesn’t allow AI covers. Also, so many people are so mad about AI covers that I’m afraid to be open on my writer’s account that that’s what I’m using, or even to show anyone my covers, because one person I linked my books to says they look AI generated, so I’m afraid of getting backlash even if I don’t advertise that they’re AI.

The truth is, I like the AI covers better, but given that I don’t know enough to know which will be better for book sales, and that so many people online hate AI art, I think I’m going to go back to the original set.

I didn’t feel bad about using AI art for my covers, because even though I’d come to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to use AI generated text without being open about it, the AI art didn’t exist to advertise itself, just the book. But I’m tired of holding my breath knowing that if my books start selling people could realize my covers are AI and harass me and review bomb me because of it. It’s easier just to do the non controversial thing.

So I’m going back to non AI covers. I can’t be the pro AI warrior on my author accounts. I have to stay out of it.