OpenAI’s new image generator, made available for ChatGPT users last week, has literally overnight become the company’s most-popular product launch. But it comes with technical issues and raises questions about potential copyright violations.
More than 130 million users have generated more than 700 million images since the upgraded image generator debuted, pulling in users and revenue, according to OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap. He added India is the fastest-growing ChatGPT market as a result of the launch.
“[W]e appreciate your patience as we try to serve everyone,” Lightcap wrote on social media platform X on Thursday. “[The] team continues to work around the clock.”
A coinciding rush to create Ghibli-style AI art using ChatGPT’s new tool has led to record traffic and some infrastructure headaches that included temporary outages, glitches and product delays, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged.
“We are getting things under control, but you should expect new releases from OpenAI to be delayed, stuff to break, and for service to sometimes be slow as we deal with capacity challenges,” Altman said earlier this week.
“We added one million users in the last hour,” Altman added in an X post on Monday.
Active users, in-app subscription revenue and worldwide app downloads for OpenAI soared in recent days, based on data from market intelligence firm SensorTower. Downloads surged 11%, week over week, while in-app purchases increased 6%.
But the extensive use of OpenAI’s new tool to create the distinctive hand-drawn art of Ghibli may pose copyright-infringement issues, caution legal experts. [The iconic Japanese animation outfit, Studio Ghibli, was co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki, the animator and director of such Academy Award-winning works as “Spirited Away” and “The Boy and the Heron.”]
“The legal landscape of AI-generated images mimicking Studio Ghibli’s distinctive style is an uncertain terrain. Copyright law has generally protected only specific expressions rather than artistic styles themselves,” Evan Brown, partner at law firm Neal & McDevitt, told Reuters.
OpenAI has kept mum on the topic, but Miyazaki made his feelings known back in 2016 when shown AI-generated images of his art. “I am utterly disgusted,” he said back then.
