The Israeli military joined the Ghibli artificial intelligence (AI) photo trend, prompting backlash on social media.
“We thought we’d also hop on the Ghibli trend,” the Israeli army’s post on X said, accompanied with four AI-generated photos of personnel from all branches of the military.
In recent days, the internet has been flooded with images based on the hand-drawn style of the renowned Japanese animation outfit, Studio Ghibli, founded by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Miyazaki, who famously slammed the use of artificial intelligence in art as an “insult to life itself,” has made anti-war movies with profoundly pacifist messages – exploring themes of authoritarianism, military regimes, the pain and pointlessness of war, and grotesque mechanization of human life among others.
The Israeli army’s participation in the social media trend has been met with grave criticism and sparked a controversy storm on X.
Photos posted on the Israeli army’s official account show infantry soldiers standing at an army post, a navy officer manning anti-aircraft weapons, and air force pilots sitting in a fighter jet – all warped to look like Ghibli-style cartoons.
Several social media users condemned the Israeli army’s post as an attempt to sugarcoat or sanitize its war in Gaza. Since October 2023, Israeli strikes on the besieged enclave have killed over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to official figures.
Some X users responded with similar AI-rendered images of displaced Palestinians with buildings grazed to rubble in the background, children in Gaza raising their hands at gunpoint of Israeli soldiers, and Hamas leaders giving speeches on camera.
Al Arabiya
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