Ghibli with a Prompt - Right or Wrong?

Navigating AI Art, Inspiration, and Ownership

I’ve been tinkering more with image generation lately—mostly flowcharts and UX mockups. But every now and then, I’ll prompt something playful: a mysterious forest, a sun-drenched street scene. And increasingly, I’m seeing others post Ghibli-esque art with stunning ease & utter irreverence.

Here’s the twist: I dabble in the fine arts (think graphite based sketching - I’ve only started 9 months ago so still a long way to go to learn the craft) but I have found immense value in generative tools for visual ideation. Scenes I could never sketch by hand, suddenly, I can evoke with a few well-phrased prompts. As someone with a product mindset, this kind of time-to-value is gold.

And yet, that strange twinge remains. When I see a generated image that leans heavily into a beloved aesthetic – whether Ghibli, Moebius, or Klimt – I pause.

Am I creating, or just remixing someone else's soul?

Let me set the context: I'm a product manager who obsesses over how tools reduce friction, unlock creativity, and deliver value fast. But I also have a strong respect for craft and originality. So when I see how easily we can conjure up images inspired by years (sometimes lifetimes) of artistic discipline, I find myself wondering: are we honoring that lineage, or shortcutting it? The image attached with this post was an image generated by OpenAI using the following prompt “create an image for this post - maybe impressionistic art with ghibli studio aesthetics”

A Tale of Two Impulses: Creation and Curation

On one hand, there's the democratizing magic of AI tools. The idea that anyone can create. No expensive art school. No elite gatekeepers. Just a spark of imagination and an interface. As a PM, I admire the sheer usability and potential of that value prop.

But here's a thought experiment that helps me contextualize the tension:

Imagine the first Impressionist painter. Let’s say Monet. He redefined what painting could be. Now imagine others immediately mimicking his style. Was that plagiarism? Or was it the birth of a movement? We don't fault the Impressionists for having similar aesthetics. We celebrate the way they reshaped the visual conversation.

That said, there’s a key difference: when one painter is inspired by another, their work is inevitably filtered through their own hands, their choices, their imperfections. Something distinct emerges. With AI, the output often feels more like pastiche than progression. AI tends to collage what it’s seen—offering echoes of brilliance, not new voices. It’s more a reflection than a reimagination.

And yet, history reminds us: every movement starts as a remix. Could AI cross that threshold too? Could it eventually generate something completely new and unseen? A visual style or aesthetic so distinct it starts its own movement, rather than echoing past ones? And if so, how would we perceive it? As human ingenuity channeled through code, or as something alien—too synthetic to celebrate?

So Where Do I Land?

Honestly, I don’t have a clean answer yet. What I do know is:

1. These tools have helped me prototype and visualize faster than I ever could on my own.

2. Attribution and transparency matter. If a style is inspired by Ghibli or any artist, we should say so.

3. We need better norms (and maybe even tools) to distinguish between homage, inspiration, and appropriation.

Maybe the question isn’t should we use these tools, but how we use them. Do we see ourselves as stewards of a style or opportunistic consumers? Do we treat artistic legacies as sacred, or as datasets?

For now, I’ll keep experimenting—with care. I’ll use these tools to ideate, not imitate. And I’ll keep asking questions, because sometimes the asking is what keeps the process human.

Would love to hear where others land on this. Are you using AI art in your work or play? Do you feel torn too?

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P.S. If anyone knows of tools that let you train on your own art or let you exclude specific artists/styles, let me know. That kind of control feels like the next frontier.