AI has suddenly made beautiful work feel generic

ChatGPT's new image generator makes a timeless truth more obvious.

AI is decimating the barriers to entry for creating beautiful work.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, once again, has put itself at the center of a new zeitgeist — this time for its updated image generator. Over the last 24 hours, the internet has realized the new powers of the tool and everything is going viral.

People are particularly interested in having ChatGPT recreate images in the style of Studio Ghilbi, the legendary Japanese animation studio behind "Spirited Away."

I tested it myself with the image above, as well as dozens more. I spent all afternoon figuring out how well it really works. I’d encourage everyone to do the same.

Here’s another example. I used one of our engagement photos and asked ChatGPT to recreate the image in the style of a Disney Pixar movie.

It nailed it.

I also uploaded a photo of my friends and I from a golf trip a few years back.

I used the viral Studio Ghilbi request once more — only this time I asked ChatGPT to make all of us extremely muscular.

Hilarious.

I’m trying to wrap my head around what this means.

Just like that, beautiful design is no longer a luxury or bottleneck. Every business, individual, art and marketing team suddenly has no excuse not to have world-class creative work.

Websites, advertisements, pitch decks, branding — AI has redefined what's possible. That means the bar has been raised for anyone who wants to participate.

Of course, that includes myself and my own startup media company, Opening Bell Daily.

Is this existential? For some jobs, probably.

I will say, if I was starting college today I would not pursue an art major.

I expect it will get increasingly difficult to gain employment as a designer, illustrator or marketer.

I do not, however, think it’s correct to say AI is destroying jobs. Rather, I’d bet responsibilities once reserved for entire agencies will shrink to one-person operations.

If that’s true, it opens the door to a lot more army-of-one go-getters.

This will all happen soon, but not tomorrow. As pervasive as AI feels where I sit in the middle of Manhattan, I recognize these tools still only have fringe adoption in broader society.

Still, history is clear on this point: Innovation creates opportunity.

And the optimists tend to find them first.

In this Brave New World where anyone can generate beauty on demand, the ideas that cut through will be the ones with soul, specificity, and something to say.

Beautiful work is now at risk of being called generic. That puts a premium on true novelty.

You could say the new image model changes everything — but I’d argue it only makes a timeless truth more obvious.

The most original ideas will stand out best.

Talk to you soon,

Phil Rosen,
Co-founder & Editor-in-chief, Opening Bell Daily