The impact of AI-made pics: from “Starter Packs” to Ghibli
“Look at my Starter pack! ChatGPT knows me really well!” or “I look so cool in the Ghibli universe!” AI-made pics are everywhere these days, especially on places like Insta or X: individuals using it for fun, companies using it to follow the trend and in politics to communicate ideas. Having your own Starter Pack or you in Ghibli’s style is a piece of cake — you only have to give details of yourself to an AI, it’s so exciting. Even if those pics are everywhere you can think outside the box and don’t feel obliged to follow the trend.
Starter Packs are everywhere, especially since ChatGPT-4.o started helping people create these mini-figures of themselves or their work colleagues. It’s a bit like having your own avatar with all your favorite things.
Personally, I find it just pointless: ‘Oh this starter pack is great, it’s really him!’, drop a like, scroll by and moves on to something else in a nano-second.
The AI tool generated that pack in a few seconds… it makes me uncomfortable to think that an artist learning to draw and produce something in that style would have taken several years perfecting their craft.
Some people think that AI is like a magic wand for creativity: it allows everyone to try their hand at creation, even if they don’t know how to draw. I don't think so.
And then there’s the Ghibli trend. This new trend is all about transforming photos into something that looks like it came straight out of the mind of Hayao Miyazaki. It’s like stepping out of My Neighbor Totoro or Princess Mononoke.
Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film with Studio Ghibli, “The Boy and the Heron”, is a unique blend of autobiography and Japanese history, all set in a surreal, animated world. . If Miyazaki’s style is now emblematic — and AI manages to copy it — his work could remain the sole predictor of the future of aesthetics.
Some fear that AI will steal their profession, but for artists it’s about their style, the heart and soul they put into their art.
Now that we know that the impact on art and artists is underestimated, let’s talk about the planet. All this image production by AI is not at all environmentally friendly: this technology needs a lot of electricity and water.
It demands more and more, like a hungry, thirsty monster. This is not good for our energy consumption and is disrupting our water supply.
Even if AI copies the style of great artists and does it easily and quickly, at the end of the day, there’s something that makes you keep clinging to the idea that it’s humans who are making art. Some people, in reaction to these trends, have decided to promote their own way of creating. Hand-drawn designs will always be as special as ever - they have that personal touch that no computer can ever match.
Let’s not forget to appreciate real work.
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the . As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminating the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
