Ghibli-style AI stirs debate

[Anchor]

These days, using ChatGPT to transform photos into the style of the Japanese animation 'Ghibli' is gaining immense popularity.

However, concerns regarding copyright and other issues have also been raised.

Reporter Kang Na-ru has investigated the situation.

[Report]

Citizens out enjoying cherry blossom viewing are busy capturing joyful moments with their smartphones.

Recently, it has become very popular to upload these photos to ChatGPT and convert them into images in the style of the famous Japanese animation 'Ghibli.'

By simply inserting a photo and a few commands, the images are generated.

Within just a week of this feature being introduced in ChatGPT, over 700 million AI images have been created.

There have been concerns about whether this infringes on Ghibli's copyrights, but experts believe it is difficult to interpret this as a legal violation.

[Lee Kwang-wook/Lawyer: "(Transforming one's own photo) into Ghibli style does evoke a feeling reminiscent of Ghibli animation, but it does not borrow specific expressions...."]

However, if the AI developer used Ghibli works without permission during the AI training process, it could become a problem.

[Lee Seong-yeop/Professor at Korea University Graduate School of Technology Management: "(AI developers) are continuously scraping data without consent for training, and the question is to what extent this can be done freely...."]

Due to the ease of creating these images, there are significant concerns among those working in the animation industry.

[Lee Geun-young/Animation Industry Worker: "It's really like the bear does the tricks while the money goes to the rich man."]

[Lee Yu-jin/Animation Industry Worker: "Wouldn't it be better to give some attention to the actual animation creators as well?"]

There is a growing call for AI companies and copyright holders to establish a system where they can share profits from this situation.

This is KBS News, Kang Na-ru.