Happy Trans Day of Visibility 🏳️‍⚧️

The Battle Over Ghibli's Artistic Style in AI Generation

The recent viral phenomenon of ChatGPT generating images in Studio Ghibli's distinctive style has raised serious questions about whether OpenAI trained its image generation models on copyrighted Ghibli content without permission. While there is no definitive confirmation, evidence points to a complex situation with significant copyright implications.

The Conflicting Policies Within OpenAI

One of the most telling aspects of this controversy is OpenAI's inconsistent approach to Ghibli-style image generation across its own products:

Contradictory Responses from Different Models

The free version of ChatGPT, which uses OpenAI's older DALL-E 3 image generator, explicitly refuses to create Ghibli-style images, stating that it cannot generate such images "because Ghibli is a copyrighted animation studio, and its artistic style is protected." This message clearly acknowledges potential copyright concerns.

However, ChatGPT's paid version, which uses the newer 4o model, readily generates Ghibli-style images upon request. This inconsistency suggests a deliberate policy shift rather than a technical limitation, raising questions about OpenAI's approach to copyright in its newer models.

When asked about this discrepancy, OpenAI provided only limited clarification, stating that while they prevent "generations in the style of individual living artists," they do permit "broader studio styles." This distinction appears to create a convenient loophole for using studio-associated content.

Training Data: The Black Box Problem

Secrecy Surrounding OpenAI's Training Data

OpenAI has never publicly disclosed the specific datasets used to train DALL-E or its other image generators. This lack of transparency makes it impossible to definitively confirm whether Ghibli images were included. OpenAI treats its training data as highly proprietary, with court orders requiring strict security measures when lawyers need to examine it in copyright cases.

What we do know is that OpenAI has consistently maintained that "training AI models using publicly available internet materials is fair use" based on established legal precedents. This suggests that if Ghibli images were widely available online, OpenAI might have included them in training datasets without seeking permission.

The Evidence of Capability

The accuracy with which GPT-4o can replicate Studio Ghibli's distinctive visual style strongly suggests the model was trained on a substantial number of Ghibli images. According to technology news site TechCrunch, OpenAI's image generator was "the most accurate to the animation studio's style by far" when compared to other AI image generators.

As intellectual property lawyer Weinberg noted, while style itself isn't protected by copyright, what people often refer to as "style" might include specific, identifiable elements of artwork. "In 'Howl's Moving Castle' or 'Spirited Away,' you could freeze any frame and identify distinct aspects, then compare them to the output from generative AI, which might show identical or very similar elements," he explained.

OpenAI's Position on Copyright and Training

The Fair Use Argument

OpenAI has consistently argued that training AI on publicly available internet materials constitutes fair use. In recent submissions to the U.S. government, OpenAI has framed copyright access as a "matter of national security," arguing that if Chinese AI developers have unrestricted data access while American companies don't, "the AI race is essentially over."

Despite claiming legal right to train on publicly available content, OpenAI offers publishers an opt-out mechanism, stating that "legal right is less important to us than being good citizens." There is no evidence that Studio Ghibli participated in this opt-out program before the controversy erupted.

The Evolving Legal Landscape

The legal foundation for OpenAI's position has recently been challenged. In a landmark decision, a court ruled against AI company Ross Intelligence, finding that training on Thomson Reuters' copyrighted legal materials was not fair use. This ruling could potentially undermine OpenAI's blanket fair use claims, especially when the AI product directly competes with or diminishes the market for the original works.

Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli's Stance on AI

The founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, has previously expressed strong opposition to AI in animation. In 2016, after viewing an AI demonstration, Miyazaki called it "an insult to life itself" and explicitly stated he would "not wish to use this technology in my work at all."

Miyazaki expressed concern that AI represents humans "losing faith in ourselves," saying "I feel like we are nearing the end of times." This philosophical opposition makes it highly unlikely that Miyazaki would have willingly granted permission for OpenAI to use Ghibli's work for AI training.

Studio Ghibli as a company has not yet issued an official statement about OpenAI's use of their artistic style in this specific controversy, though in December 2024, they announced plans to pursue "civil and criminal" actions against online retailers selling unlicensed Ghibli merchandise.

Public and Creator Reactions

The social media response to Ghibli-style AI images has been divided. While some users celebrated the ability to transform their photos into Ghibli-esque art, many artists and fans expressed outrage at what they perceive as artistic theft.

One viral criticism on social media summarized the anger: "OpenAI has stolen Studio Ghibli's artwork & these morons are cheering and clapping for it as if this crap has actually achieved anything. They're literally advertising a plagiarism program that hasn't compensated nor sought permission from Studio Ghibli. F*** these people."

Artist Karla Ortiz, who grew up watching Miyazaki's films and is suing other AI image generators for copyright infringement, labeled this situation as "another clear example of how companies like OpenAI disregard the work and livelihoods of artists." She added, "They're leveraging Ghibli's brand, name, and reputation to promote their products. It's an insult and an act of exploitation."

Conclusion

While there is no definitive confirmation that OpenAI used Studio Ghibli images in training its models, the circumstantial evidence is strong. The accuracy with which GPT-4o reproduces Ghibli's style, OpenAI's inconsistent policies between its models, the company's general approach to training on publicly available content, and the lack of any announced licensing agreement all suggest that Ghibli content was likely used without explicit permission.

This controversy represents just one high-profile example of the broader ethical and legal questions surrounding AI training data. As legal challenges mount against AI companies for using copyrighted content without permission, the outcome of these cases will likely shape the future of AI development and potentially affect how OpenAI and other companies approach content licensing and usage rights.

Sources

Source: The Battle Over Ghibli's Artistic Style in AI Generation

I'm so scared to losing my family 💔💔🥺

✅ Vetted by @90-ghost  -vetted link

PC// I'm trying to be vetted by @gazavetters

For all kidness people and humanity please consider me as your sister that need a shelter for her husband and baby.

My baby is too little for this bad suffering.

All I need from you is to help us by donating with a little amount of money and if you can't you can share at least 🙏🙏🙏🙏🚨🚨🚨

The money for evacuation is:

$5000 for me

$5000 for my husband

$2500 for my baby

All remaining funds will go to affording Adam’s surgery and helping us survive until we find jobs and start our new life.

You can donate here

There Is No Invasion

Dear Secretaries Hegeseth and Noem,

We know the truth. There is no invasion. The people coming to this country are coming from countries shattered by violence, and want nothing to do with criminal gangs. They see your broken promises to seniors, veterans, parents and workers and wonder if they should not have made some other land of freedom and opportunity their home instead. They know how painful the rule of autocrats and criminals is, and want nothing more than to be left in peace. 

Yet, on January 20, Donald Trump signed a proclamation demanding that on April 20, you recommend the deployment of the military so these peaceful people can be arrested and deported without trial. Even if they are exercising the first amendment, like the students who are being kidnapped off the streets for peaceful protest. Even if they are our closest friends, like our NATO allies being turned away at the airport for tweets that offend the president. Even if they are citizens, like the ten year old recovering from a brain tumor deported to Mexico with her whole family.

Are these your invaders? Allies? Students? The parents of dying citizen children desperately seeking our medical care? To recommend the use of the insurrection act on April 20th will end American democracy as we know it. Trump can immediately act to jail so called invaders using military force. He has already used this power to disappear people without trial, and while justice tries to claw them back from foreign prisons your staff parade them on social media. If you sign that order, if you open those floodgates, you will be remembered as the greatest traitors in American History.

The invasion at the southern border is a fantasy of an autocrat and the American People will not let you abandon our founding civil rights. If you betray the american people and sign a recommendation that insurrection be declared on that day, know that the American People will resist your illegal regime with every legal tool available.

Sincerely,

The People of the United States

happy trans day of visibility everyone, i can now legally be perceived for the next 24 hours

"This is Hossam’s team, and we are sharing his final message :

“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces. When this all began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like anyone else. For past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents—anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.

By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest—something I haven’t known in the past 18 months . I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people.

I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.”

— For the last time, Hossam Shabat, from northern Gaza."

please don't think you should stop helping palestinians because there is a ceasefire now. even if there is no more active bombing and shooting, people still struggle to survive. people return to their houses to see them in rubble, people still struggle to afford necessities like food, water and clothes, still have only tents over their head, and have lost their jobs with no means of income to support themselves or their family. this isn't even touching the mental turmoil people are going through which is unimaginable.

palestinians still need help. they are still struggling. so please consider helping them: donate to aboud al-qudra, a man who has lost so much family and friends, alongside his business which he has worked so hard to achieve.

even if you cannot donate, please reblog, so other people capable of doing so can find it and donate.

€9,891/€25K goal

you can also donate to his paypal here:

campaign vetted here

€19,228/€25K aboud is close to his goal! please help bridge the gap by donating what you can, or sharing if you can't

Chipped Away

I am a writer but sometimes tapping out tiny symbols on a flat page can't quite scratch that itch, scream that profanity, or exorcise the demons. On rare occasions, a sculpture invades my struggling mind and replaces my words. I saw her finished in one flash. I heard her name in the same instant. All there was left to do was to figure out how to build her and yet she told me how to do that, too.

Chipped Away. That's what I uttered under my breath after I witnessed the last vestiges of forward progress crushed under Jack boots. Chipped Away. Past tense, done and dusted, without recourse and my 80-year-old mother scoffs as the fourth generation after her loses rights she'd seen slowly gained over her entire lifetime. Chipped Away. Societal protections put in place to safeguard against the worst impulses of the impotent because, obviously, if left to their own devices, their compulsion to ensnare, enslave, and ultimately erase reality would consume their humanity and endanger ours.

I don't care what you do with your daily choices, man or woman, but make them. If you can't, if you're so broken, so hollow that you need to look outside of yourself, look anywhere else to engage your scattered mind, spew venom to lubricate your shriveled veins, and cleave to hate in order to squeeze another beat out of your frozen heart, know this: I can make my choices for myself. And that is the eternal gulf between us. Not our politics. Not our faith. Not our birth, station, color, sex, intellect, luck, or fate. It's that while I'm doing me, you're also trying to do me.

The quiet truth, and please don't tell the monsters under the bed - probably checking to see if you're doing it right - is that when I shuffled to my kitchen this morning with my bed head in a swirl and a decidedly unsexy robe, filled my cup, and stared out into the dawn, you, the monster who is so endlessly fascinated with my choices, weren't there. I chose coffee instead of tea this morning. You weren't there. I slipped out of bed without a morning romp with my partner. You weren't consulted. I pulled a family-sized frozen meal from the freezer to thaw. You never crossed my mind. I went for a walk in the woods instead of dressing for church. As far as I can tell, you aren't in either place. I've only summoned up your thin spirit here, today, such that I can tell you that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy, irrelevance, indifference. In short, "Was someone talking?"

However, I digress, but not really. Chipped Away is a protest piece - unapologetically so - and yet, in a very short while, she was also restorative. What started with a tiny curl of walnut as the ball of her foot, grew upward with very little help from me. That tiny tiptoe, I knew, was the foundation of her outstretched fingers at the very top, desperately reaching to grasp another escaped chip of herself as it floats away.

Parts of her are already gone, a shoulder, a leg, and some are disappearing, but still she clamors for any piece she can pull back to herself. Constructed only of a framework of wood curls and chips, the sculpture rose impossibly to nearly 16". Eager to assemble herself, I only placed the pieces, well, between the miniscule pieces and the glue, I wouldn't say "placed" as much at I stuck to everything but once in a while, got the chip or curl in the right place.

As often happens in the throes of art, the muses have something else in mind. As I was constructing this woman under siege, bits of maple, cherry, walnut, and cedar stuck in places I hadn't noticed. And they fell as leaves, feathers, and flowers, building her up again with beauty and symbols of life. Standing now at full height, she moves with every vibration but is somehow solid. My husbands says, "She's surprisingly flexible, yet strong, just like a woman."

I'm working on the finish and her pedestal now, taking all the time she wants me to take but I figure she'll be set up on the mantle or a shelf by this next weekend. Chipped Away: a sculpture I didn't know I needed to create but a message I needed to say.

Source: Chipped Away

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

Chat, is it considered “abusive roommate behavior” to release a raccoon into the living space after you have asked your roommate for months to please clean up their messes (they do not pay any of the mortgage)

For context, when I used to live alone I would do something called “Princess Time” where I would do an initial sweep (to remove any significant hazards) and then I would release a raccoon into the living area and clean. This helped because I would 1) feel like a princess and 2) the raccoon would bring attention to things my ADHD brain had decided to ignore and I’d quickly clean that stuff up.

So like, if I’m expected to clean the house now, I will be doing it in the way that is most effective for me. And anything that has not been cleaned up after months of having sit-down talks and sending reminders and being promised things will change, might be deemed “trash” by the trash panda and thrown away.

We haven’t done since we moved into the house, because I didn’t want to cause my roommate or their cats destress or have their things destroyed by a raccoon

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

I wanna make things very clear that underneath all the whimsy, I am a trained professional.

I mean this in the nicest possible way but you're the sort of person that can normally be found only on reddit

so long as we're back to social justice 101 on this stupid website, u need to be aware of the feedback loop that emerges from disproportionate scrutiny: any social group that is placed under extra scrutiny, regardless of the actual prevalence of any particular behaviour, will appear to engage in that behaviour more often.

you see this most blatantly with racialised groups (more cops in black neighbourhoods = more arrests in black neighbourhoods = "omg look at all the crime in these neighbourhoods!" = more cops in black neighbourhoods etc). even if the rate of crime is the same (putting to one side the criminalisation of poverty which is also an important related factor), one group gets away with it way more often and a new generation of racists is indoctrinated with the crime statistics which "prove" that some groups are simply more criminal in nature. we see a similar phenomenon online with particular groups (trans women being a huge example) being subjected to mass stalking, their every move documented by weirdos and broadcast as representative of the group as a whole.

tl;dr - overscrutinising groups based on existing bigotries creates a recurring feedback loop, reproducing those bigotries across generations and nominally justifying them. this is bad, and you need to remember that you are not immune to it.

really good tiktok

I’m reading that new memoir about working at Facebook,”Careless People,” and it’s just fucking insane.

At one point Facebook wanted to be an international hub for organ donation. The “Lean In” lady asked why she couldn’t go down to Mexico and buy a kidney if her four year old needs one. This is literally on p.57. What the fuck else is going to be in this book if that is on page 57

Facebook also had to have protocols for armed raids of its foreign offices because they violated so many laws or failed to pay taxes or comply with other official protocols!! How is this a company that still exists!!!

“Doing jail time in a foreign country is not a reasonable ask from your bosses” — legitimately an argument the author’s husband had to have with her!!

Is this what gilded age readers felt like when they read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”???

Though strangely nothing Mark Zuckerberg does is worse than Sheryl Sandburg, who comes across as an unhinged hypocrite who uses her uncontrollable anger issues to cultivate a reign of terror, I am just… baffled and appalled at how much Zuckerberg does not care about the world outside of Silicon Valley. There have already been two instances of him trying to wear a hoodie to state visits, and not in a Zelenskyy protest way. He just doesn’t like clothes that are not hoodies.

Wow they just abandoned a team member in the middle of an out of control crowd in Indonesia! Horrible company!

Guess who Mark Zuckerberg thinks is the best president of all time?

Hint: it’s Andrew Jackson!

Another mind-boggling line: “I think the point at which you have to explain Nuremberg to the head of the team leading your China entry is probably a red flag.”

Real exchange that happened between book author and the head of the DC office:

This conference room detail seems like too much for satire. But it isn’t!

This book has gotten so insane I can’t even summarize anymore. I can only post photos of this moment where Sheryl Sandberg wears her pajamas on a private jet and tries to make her heavily pregnant employee cuddle in bed with her on a flight back to California from Davos, Switzerland.

Following this, we discover that Sheryl says, “you should have gotten in the bed,” and ices out the narrator. Sheryl also has her assistant Sadie buy $10k of lingerie for her, and $3k of lingerie for herself, after which Sadie has to go to her house to model the lingerie and stay overnight. What the actual fuck.

Woooow FB knew the whole time that Trump was using trolls and spreading disinformation before the 2016 election but because they were making so much money off of it, they were just fine with it. They completely ignored the author pointing out how Duterte had done the same thing.

Direct quote on p 251: “Outrage is a lucrative business for Facebook right now, a month before the election….”

Jaw-dropping.

Guess who lied to Congress about how the Chinese Communist Party would apply its laws and regulations to Facebook?

Mark Zuckerberg!

A lot of this later stuff about Facebook’s attempts to get into China are going a little over my head but I can see why Meta was trying to discredit the book and shut down reviews. She’s whistleblowing violations of US AND international laws. I doubt they’ll see consequences under Trump but YIKES

“By now it feels like the day-to-day at Facebook is lurching from one dismaying shit show to the next.”

SEEMS ACCURATE

This is so evil!!!

I don’t even know how to summarize the particularly heinous things that happened with Facebook in Myanmar and I’d have to take photos of the whole chapter to select bits but BASICALLY

-thanks to a telecoms deal Facebook came preloaded on a lot of mobile phones and often time on FB didn’t count towards your minutes so to many in Myanmar Facebook WAS the internet

-nonetheless FB was not optimized for Burmese, Myanmar was not renders on Unicode, and the terms of service were translated extremely late and passed out on paper flyers instead of posted anywhere. FB in Myanmar had little to no oversight and there was only one contractor in Dublin monitoring hate speech in Burmese even when there were LITERAL RIOTS caused by misinformation posted on Burmese FB

-Myanmar was not a priority for FB leadership so after LITERAL RIOTS they only hired one other contractor who seemed to remove posts from peace activists rather than hate speech or posts calling for violence

-due to what seems like internal politicking against the author, the person she tries to hire to be in charge of Myanmar in the right time zonenever gets hired

-FB higher ups were warned in advance of huge misinformation efforts like troll accounts and takeovers of fan accounts for pop stars but did nothing, leading pretty much directly to what the UN calls genocide and crimes against humanity

Why did it all happen? The author’s conclusion: higher ups “didn’t give a fuck.”

Wow and after all that they fired the author for reporting sexual harassment from her Bush-trained, Trump insider boss

Holy shit was this a harrowing read. These insanely rich people have so much money they are insulated from the consequences of any and all actions and don’t care what countries they smash as long as they can pull money from the wreckage

Holding Onto Memories 🎞️

✅️ Vetted by @gazavetters {537}✅️

There’s a strange thing about memories—sometimes, they feel like the only thing we have left. I close my eyes, and I can still see my family sitting around the dinner table, laughing at a joke my uncle made. I can still hear my mother calling me to come inside before it gets too late. I can still feel the warm sun on my face as I walked home from school, thinking about my next big dream.

Now, those moments feel like they belong to another life. The streets aren’t the same. The people aren’t the same. And I—I don’t know if I’m the same either. But I hold onto those memories so tightly because they remind me of who I am, of the love I’ve known, of the warmth that still exists somewhere in this world.

If you’re reading this, take a moment to appreciate the little things. Hug your family. Send a message to an old friend. Step outside and take a deep breath of fresh air. 🌿 These are the moments that matter. These are the things that make life beautiful.

No matter where life takes me, I’ll never stop cherishing the love that shaped me. And I hope, wherever you are, you never stop appreciating the love around you too. 💙

✅️ Vetted by @gazavetters {537}✅️

You'll have to turn sound on for this one

i just have to know what happened to the ui/ux designers at firaxis between civ6 and civ7

what the fuck