ChatGPT Usage Hits Record After Viral Ghibli-Style AI Trend

Photo : Reuters

A new trend has spread across social media, where people from all over the world are sharing pictures made to look like the famous drawing style of Studio Ghibli. This Japanese animation studio was started by well-known filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and is loved for its movies like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. The hand-drawn style of these films is now being copied by computer-made pictures, and this has made many people excited.

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Because of this trend, more and more people are using OpenAI’s ChatGPT app, which helps make these pictures. A company that studies online data, Similarweb, said that the number of people using the app in one week has gone over 150 million for the first time this year. This shows how much interest there is in making pictures in the style of Studio Ghibli.

The boss of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said on Monday that one million people started using the app in just one hour. He compared this to when ChatGPT was first released two years ago and took five days to get one million users. This shows how fast people are joining now.

Another company, SensorTower, which looks at phone app numbers, said that the ChatGPT app had its best week ever. More people downloaded the app, paid for its services, and used it than ever before. The reason for this is the new update that allows people to create better and more detailed pictures.

Last week, the number of people downloading the ChatGPT app grew by 11%, and the number of people using it each week went up by 5%. The amount of money made from people buying features inside the app also increased by 6%. This shows that more and more people are excited about creating pictures this way.

However, because so many people are using it at the same time, the app has had some problems. Over the past week, users have faced small issues, like slow responses or the app not working for short periods. OpenAI’s co-founder said on Tuesday that the company is trying to fix these problems but warned that users should expect delays in new updates and that sometimes the app may not work as expected. “We are fixing things, but new updates will take longer, and sometimes the app may work slowly or have small issues because of too much traffic,” he said.

Concerns About Law and Fairness
While many people are enjoying making these pictures, some experts are worried about whether it is fair to copy Studio Ghibli’s art style. The question is whether this breaks any copyright rules. Copyright laws protect artwork from being copied, but usually, they do not protect the “style” of an artist. Because of this, it is unclear whether making computer pictures that look like Studio Ghibli’s drawings is allowed or not.

A lawyer named Evan Brown, who works at Neal & McDevitt law firm, said, “The law about computer-made pictures that copy Studio Ghibli’s style is unclear. Copyright laws usually protect specific artworks, not artistic styles.”

OpenAI has not yet answered any questions about how its app was trained to make these pictures or whether it could break any copyright laws.

At the same time, an old comment from Studio Ghibli’s co-founder Hayao Miyazaki has appeared online again. Miyazaki has strongly disliked computer-made pictures for a long time. In 2016, when he was shown a test version of an early computer-made animation, he said he felt “disgusted” and had no interest in using such technology in his work. “I would never use this kind of thing in my movies,” he said.

As more people use computers to make art, there is still a big debate about whether it is fair or not. While many are having fun creating Studio Ghibli-style pictures, the argument over whether this should be allowed is not over yet.