The release of OpenAI’s new image generator sparked a tsunami of Studio Ghibli-style memes and raised copyright concerns, but Sam Altman thinks AI art is a “net win” for society.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has weighed in on the growing controversy surrounding AI-generated art, particularly in light of the recent viral trend mimicking Studio Ghibli’s animation style. In a virtual appearance on a podcast hosted by Indian entrepreneur Varun Mayya, Altman expressed his views about AI’s impact on the creative industry, job market, and more, defending the technology as a democratizing force.
Viral Ghibli Trend Reignites AI Art Debate
The interview comes in the wake of the explosive popularity of AI-generated images created in the visual style of Japan’s iconic Studio Ghibli. The trend was catalyzed by the integration of a native image generation feature into ChatGPT, powered by the GPT-4o model. The incident sparked intense debate online between AI enthusiasts and critics, further deepening the divide around ethical and creative concerns.
Altman: “A Big Net Win for Society”
Acknowledging the backlash, Altman admitted there are drawbacks to the widespread use of AI in the arts but maintained that the overall impact is positive.
“I think the democratisation of creating content has been a big net win for society. It has not been a complete win, there are negative things about it for sure, and certainly it did something about the art form, but I think on the whole it’s been a win,” Altman stated.
Miyazaki Critique Resurfaces
Amid the backlash, a video resurfaced featuring legendary animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, in which he described AI as “an insult to life.” While some social media users argued the clip was taken out of context, the video added fuel to the fire.
When asked about the comment, Altman did not dismiss the concern but reiterated the broader societal benefit of AI-generated content.
“It doesn’t mean that it [AI-generated art] doesn’t cause some job loss, and some people who had a sort of differential ability to do something now have a lot more competition. But overall I think it’s a real benefit to society.”
AI Creating More Competition for Artists
Altman admitted that AI-generated art introduces new competition for traditional artists, especially those with niche skills. However, he pointed to technology’s ability to lower the barrier of entry as a transformative force.
“My own experience of this was watching the barrier to entry to starting a company really change. OpenAI itself was an example of a company that only got to happen because the barriers to entry to a bunch of different pieces of technology stack got significantly low and this ragtag bunch of us were able to just do something we had no right to do,” he said.
Image Generation Usage Soars
Since the rollout of the image generator in ChatGPT, user activity has surged. According to OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap, over 700 million images have been generated by 130 million users, and the billion-image milestone is approaching fast.
Altman highlighted both creative and commercial applications for the tool:
“The thing that’s been exciting to me is just the breadth of creative use cases. […] There’s obviously a lot of great commercial use cases too where people are using this for their small businesses to generate new logos or graphic designs…”
India Becomes OpenAI’s Fastest Growing Market
In the same podcast, Altman emphasized India’s rapid adoption of AI tools, calling it OpenAI’s fastest growing market outside the United States. “India was one of the first markets outside the US that really jumped on AI in a huge huge way and since this moment has happened, it is now our fastest growing market,” Altman revealed.
On lowering ChatGPT subscription prices in India, he said: “Unfortunately, our compute costs are still just quite high but we are hard at work on more efficient models, and I’m optimistic we’ll be able to bring cost down over time.” Reports have also indicated that OpenAI is in talks with Jio Platforms to localize data hosting and distribution of ChatGPT services for Indian enterprises.
Job Market Will Be Unevenly Affected
Discussing the future of work in an AI-powered world, Altman said the impact will vary by profession. “It’ll be different for different kinds of jobs. There will be some jobs that totally go away because the AI just does them end to end. Mostly I think it’ll be a case of a new tool where people are just much more productive and can do work at a higher quality.”
Using graphic design as an example, Altman noted that despite automation, human taste remains relevant:“Maybe there will be more people that do [graphic design] because we just have an explosion of how many websites we can get [using AI]. Maybe it turns out there was way more demand for graphic design in the world than we could afford to fill.”
AI to Supercharge Coding Productivity
Altman also discussed how AI is transforming the coding landscape. “If there’s one area where I think that the world just has so much more demand than we can currently supply, it’s for writing code,” he said.
He added that AI tools could drastically improve productivity: “AI could make a coder 10 times more predictive within this year or next year.” Altman explained that while AI might reduce the market price for code, it would likely increase output due to Jevons Paradox — a situation where increased efficiency leads to higher overall demand.
GPT-Wrappers and the Startup Boom
Addressing criticism of companies built on OpenAI’s models — often dismissed as “GPT-wrappers” — Altman drew parallels to earlier tech trends. “People are building absolutely incredible new companies based off of AI. Most of them will fail or not do that well but some of them will find a really enduring business and generate a ton of value and that’s always the case.”
He encouraged young entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas boldly:“Some 20-year-old at Y Combinator probably has an idea for a company that sounds totally crazy and bad to me, but it’s probably going to be the next OpenAI […] So go do your crazy idea is my advice.”
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