Comment by drdaeman

> I don’t understand how you can do this and not feel horrible about it.

I don't understand why you think one should feel horrible about generating images in some visual styles. What's the problem?

Demonstrably, it's not something that's generally considered protected - it's not in the laws, and I've got this impression that the request of "$artist/$studio-style art" was generally considered socially acceptable. AFAIK it's also a part of academic courses, where artists practice various styles.

Patron requests, homages, pastiches - all this stuff existed for a long while and was generally accepted (or so I think), the only difference is that a machine does it now, incredibly fast and cheap. People used to hire artists for this kind of stuff since times immemorial. Nowadays, if a machine can do a passable job, then why waste human's most valuable resource (time) for it.

It would be interesting is to hear Studio Ghibli's opinion on the matter. Not someone who thinks they might be wronged somehow (no offense meant, I do not intend to invalidate your opinion) or someone who rather thinks they might be even benefiting from this - I'm sure it's likely to be a multiple-edged sword, as life is rarely simple - but their own actual thoughts on the subject. I wonder if they already published something...