Comments on: Ghibli Goes Viral & Not Everyone’s Happy https://plumawrites.com/ghibli-chatgpt-trend/ Writer & Daydreamer Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:32:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 By: JC https://plumawrites.com/ghibli-chatgpt-trend/#comment-27082 Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:32:55 +0000 https://plumawrites.com/?p=689#comment-27082 In reply to Jim McCabe.

“We feel like a number, yet we revel in self-adoration as if a star in our own movie.”
You speak my language, Jim.

Your point about “AI setting us free” reminded me of the hypothesis about how cooking with fire helped humanity evolve. By cooking, we had more time and energy to do other, more important things. Part of that hypothesis suggests that having more time allowed early humans to think, to philosophise/wonder.

I don’t see AI yet in the same way, because in some cases it feels like it might be taking the “thinking” away. Let’s hope I’m wrong. Either way, we’ll find out in a few years.

Thanks for reading my article and for sharing your thoughts, Jim!

]]> By: Jim McCabe https://plumawrites.com/ghibli-chatgpt-trend/#comment-27068 Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:41:35 +0000 https://plumawrites.com/?p=689#comment-27068 This is a fantastic essay – thank you, JC. Fascinating for many reasons, but I have to comment. You are right – this is a stampede to nostalgia. Less like the thrill of the hula hoop fad – more like the frantic rush to the first water truck after a natural disaster. That desperate grasp for nostalgia is a manifestation of forfeited human credibility. Though chronically entertained, we are, most of us now, aware of the datafication of our human experience into trackable digits. We feel like a number, yet we revel in self-adoration as if a star in our own movie. And while genuine human ability is now recycled as nostalgia fetish, we are all endowed with amazing abilities. We ARE special – and we know it in our bones that we are manipulated, abbreviated versions of what we could be, what we aspire to be. That’s why AI is so horrifying to Miyazaki – as it should be to all of us. Just like a parrot can’t really hold a conversation, AI can mimic and assemble composites, but it can’t really know what it’s like to bite into a juicy peach on a hot summer day; to be slapped in the face by a friend; to say goodbye to someone you love. It’s the lived experience that authenticates creativity – our inherent, species-specific gift. In this faithless moment in humanity, we reach for nostalgia to touch these feelings – even if it’s AI-generated fluff. Who among us wants to say that feelings are not relevant? Industry. Business. That’s who. AI is a productivity tool that replaces humans like no other tool we have created. And all the amazing and fun things you can do with AI perfectly serve these AI Evangelists, who make a familiar promise: I will set you free – just relinquish your soul to thee. Slavery is bad, no matter how entertaining, benevolent or unfeeling the master. Just words from a guy from another century.

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