Nothing beats the surge of serotonin I feel the moment I swipe the final stroke on my canvas, indicating that an artwork I'd been breaking my back on for the past few hours is finally done. Finishing something novel every time, despite the exhausting process, makes the bad posture and sleepless nights worth it.

That’s why I was appalled to see the recent Studio Ghibli AI trend online. I've always loved Ghibli's craft, with its whimsical portrayal of stories and worldbuilding. But AI has led to the continuous reproduction and even bastardization of Hayao Miyazaki's artistic style, encapsulated by faux film screencaps.

Trends like this, however harmless they may seem, perpetuate an environment where artists are exploited and neglected. Much to the art community's outrage, generative AI models accumulate their training data from across the internet, including but not limited to other people’s intellectual property, to produce a specified prompt. While copyright lawsuits were won and anti-AI techniques that trick algorithms to yield faulty results were formulated, the detrimental use of AI remains prevalent, extending to controversial practices like deepfaking.

Technological advancements supposedly facilitate convenience and aid us in difficult tasks. For artists, these innovations even introduced us to newer mediums for our works. But it starts to become a threat when they are preferred as quicker, more efficient substitutes for professional people who need the opportunity to work for a living. 

This led me and my art colleagues to question what the future has in store for us in light of all these developments, especially after news broke out about companies starting to replace artists with AI. As generative AI companies earn more, we are left anxious in a losing competition against our technological counterparts. In the face of a capitalist society that prioritizes efficient profit generation over anything else, we are forced to live with paranoia that one day, the skills we honed for so long may eventually mean nothing. 

Artists are only a few among those whose livelihoods are compromised in the age of AI, but as more fields continue to integrate them in their tedious processes without regard for ethical standards, others may inevitably follow suit. AI must essentially remain merely a tool, and companies must ensure that both its development and use do not contribute to the degradation of human welfare. Stronger regulations must be enacted to uphold this security, and ethical principles must be clearly defined to minimize concerns and risks. For the creative industry, this may come either through legislation or tightening of guidelines by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.

I'd perhaps be more delighted if a machine could do my bidding if I didn't need to earn a living and compete with them on the market. But even so, I'd rather dwell on the immersive human experience that creating art has to offer in order to survive. For that, I wield my drawing pen, looking forward to the next surge of serotonin I've yet to feel again. ●

First published in the April 8, 2025, print edition of the Collegian.