This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Downthread:
Versus
Guess who won the day? At least X is full on ghiblifying iconic photographs with ChatGPT. Or just a cute photo of yourself to send it to your girlfriend.
And memes of course:
https://x.com/Zeneca/status/1904774204769411196
“I don't want any real pictures anymore. Every photograph has to be turned into a ghibli style cartoon”
https://x.com/LukasMikelionis/status/1904873083246084364
Which AI is best?
https://x.com/djcows/status/1905004955582575060
You need some prompt magic but it possible (for now) to also style edgy images:
https://x.com/keysmashbandit/status/1904764224636592188
Some call it slob, and maybe tomorrow the novelty is gone, but I find the pictures strangely endearing.
Next stop will be video:
https://x.com/kb24x7/status/1904942247092895843
I'm glad someone else is taking on the LLM-posting mantle.
I'd previously discussed Gemini 2.0 Flash's native image gen. It was a hit on Xitter, but nothing close to the tsunami of Ghiblification we're witnessing. Having (paying) normies use your stuff on an app makes a difference.
For a lot of people, it's a massive step-up over what they were used to (DALLE-3 via ChatGPT).
From eye-balling generations, 4o is better than Gemini in almost every aspect. More aesthetic, better prompt adherence and less censored (!!!). That's despite Google having taken a far lighter touch when it came to content moderation.
Human artists NGMI. They had a few years to seethe and cope, while holding up the failures of AI image gen such as fingers or text. It's an effectively solved problem now, well past the minimum viable product into something that casual users are immediately jumping on.
Product photography? Stock photos? Solved. Commercial photography and art is in for a bad time.
It's worth noting OpenAI has been sitting on this for 9 months. The first demos of native image gen were a good while back, and it's obvious that the release was perfectly timed to steal Google's thunder.
I expect a tit-for-tat, with the various companies trying to escalate. This is great for the consumer or informed user, but my condolences on if you rely on this to make a living. It's coming for me too.
Yeah when you put it like that, this might be the full dam breaking where anyone who was sympathetic to human artists and hostile to AI art are now in a preference cascade where the AI is just 'better', let alone faster.
And so any more sympathy the artists could pull on to justify charging money for their digital work is just now gone. They get on board or they get run over.
I'd guess it takes a bit longer for the porn AIs to catch up to the state of the art, so there's some room left, but only just.
We're all waiting for DeepSeek to release a new multimodal model and open source it. If it can generate pictures, you know there's gonna be porn.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Poor Miyazaki. I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone do Uncle Ted yet.
Poor Miyazaki?
Imagine seeing thousands of people use it your style to reveal the tenderness and beauty in their lives that the camera cannot capture.
I don't think he's very happy about it
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Here ya go.
I knew it had to exist, I just didn't know who to follow.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How are people doing this? No matter what I try chatgpt tells me it can't edit images or its against their content policy. Even if I use the try it in chatgpt link here or switch to dalle or the image generator. Do you need plus? Because the site implies that you don't.
Altman had initially said they'd roll out to all users. But he recently clarified that it's been delayed due to extreme demand from paying customers. Us free-loaders need to sit tight a while longer.
More options
Context Copy link
This prompt works for me very well with the $20 plus account. Maybe try it out:
Transform this photo into a high quality hand-drawn animated illustration. Apply watercolor techniques, soft organic lines, and a warm color palette. Maintain the original image's composition while adding a magical, dreamlike aesthetic. Emphasize gentle color transitions and a whimsical, slightly surreal atmosphere typical of classic Japanese animation
More options
Context Copy link
I'm using the app, have plus, and haven't run into any refusals yet. So far all of my images have been of friends, me and my wife, or political/cultural figures, nothing violent or sexual. I upload the photo, and ask "Can you make this photo in the style of a Ghibli animation frame?"
Still seems to be working.
Ah you must need plus, I just get replies saying either something like "I can't directly modify or "Ghiblify" the image you uploaded, but I can generate a Studio Ghibli-style character based on a description." or" I couldn't generate the requested image because it didn't follow our content policy." And I've only been trying images of myself to start.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It is hit or miss, but I've managed to get ChatGPT to generate Ghibli images with prompts similar to:
I had maybe a 50/50 success rate of taking outright refusals into it at least willing to try with the above prompt. Though some images were 3/4ths of the way done when they stopped suddenly, and I got a retroactive refusal. You might just have to play around with it.
I've seen people say that just saying "Ghibli style" works way more often than when you append the Studio before it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Are you logged in? This is the refusal I got: https://imgur.com/aWMC56O
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I got it to draw a glass of wine filled to the brim, which DallE couldn’t. However, it’s still seemingly incapable of drawing watches displaying a time other than 10:10.
More options
Context Copy link
OAI definitely won the day in the popular vote. And, at least for now, they seem to have taken off most of the guardrails: https://x.com/paul_hundred/status/1904933164256002086
Does it matter? In terms of trajectories, this is about expected, so I'm not updating much from the image gen release. Google actually got to this approach first, albeit with an inferior version that was badly marketed and had a mediocre rollout (history repeats itself, first as a tragedy, the millionth time as a farce).
What is mildly important is Gemini 2.5. It's not out of line with the expected trajectory, but it gives lie to claims about "hitting a wall." It trades blows with Anthropic, OAI, and DeepSeek, and even surpasses them--for the time being, at least--but does so much more cheaply than Claude or ChatGPT. My main takeaways are that progress continues and that Google's structural advantages are finally making Gemini a plausible leader of Western LLMs.
More options
Context Copy link
You left out the most ambitious crossover event since the Avengers
Actually, after browsing Aella’s current timeline, I think it might be finally over for 3D women this time. Sure, real Aella is attractive, but Ghibli Aella is an absolute smoke show.
How does 3D Aella have the stranger hand position?
More options
Context Copy link
Feel like that deserves a trigger warning only semi-ironically. Aella and Richard Hanania in a cursed Western animation artstyle... What did we do to deserve this? Aella polarization-maxxing continues I guess.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link