'Team needs sleep'—Altman requests break amid Ghibli-style AI art frenzy
What's the story
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has asked for a pause on the generation of Studio Ghibli-inspired AI images.
The request comes as an avalanche of such images inundates social media platforms.
Studio Ghibli's distinctive hand-drawn animation style has been widely used in profile pictures, memes, and also reimagined movie posters thanks to OpenAI's newest image generation tool in ChatGPT.
Workload
Altman expresses concern over team's workload
In light of the trend, Altman took to X to express his concerns.
"Can y'all please chill on generating images, this is insane our team needs sleep," he wrote.
This came after a user jokingly suggested firing the team behind this feature.
Altman defended his team saying they were not only building AGI but also on track to create the biggest website in the world from scratch within two and a half years.
Restrictions
Restrictions on image generation
To handle the surge in demand for AI-generated images, OpenAI has imposed restrictions.
While paid subscribers like ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Team, and Select users will still have unlimited access to image generation capabilities, free-tier users will now be restricted to three images per day.
Altman announced the change, adding that the company's GPUs were "melting" under pressure due to high demand.
Image generator
OpenAI's latest image generator and its challenges
OpenAI's latest image generator, GPT-4o, is being billed as the company's "most advanced image generator yet," with improved accuracy and better text rendering capabilities.
Unlike DALL-E which generates images in one go, GPT-4o builds them step by step for more realism.
However, the rollout of this tool has not been without challenges. OpenAI had to delay free user access and fix a bug causing inconsistent image generation issues.