Decoder with Nilay Patel

What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity

03 Apr 2025

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Today, we’re diving head first into the AI art debate, which to be honest, is an absolute mess. If you’ve been on the internet this past week, you’ve seen the Studio Ghibli memes. These images are everywhere — and they’ve widened an already pretty stark rift between AI boosters and critics. Brian Merchant, author of the newsletter and book Blood in the Machine, wrote one of the best analyses of the Ghibli trend last week. So I invited him onto the show not only to discuss this particular situation, but also to help me dissect the ongoing AI art debate more broadly. Links: OpenAI's Studio Ghibli meme factory is an insult to art itself | Brian Merchant Seattle engineer’s Ghibli-style image goes viral | Seattle Times OpenAI just raised another $40 billion round from SoftBank | Verge ChatGPT “added one million users in the last hour.” | Verge ChatGPT’s Ghibli filter is political now, but it always was | Verge OpenAI, Google ask the government to let them train on content they don’t own | Verge Studio Ghibli in the age of A.I. reproduction | Max Read OpenAI has a Studio Ghibli problem | Vergecast AI slop is a brute force attack on the algorithms that control reality | 404 Media The New Aesthetics of Fascism | New Socialist Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Decoder with Nilay Patel

What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Other episodes from Decoder with Nilay Patel

Hank Green lets loose on YouTube, billionaires, and algorithms

Netflix is eating Hollywood — because it has to

Experian's tech chief defends credit scores: 'We're not Palantir'

Razer CEO on AI in game dev, Grok, and anime waifus

"All chaos and panic": Nilay answers your burning Decoder questions

Square's product chief on the death of the penny and the future of money

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