Some of the criticism seems to have broken through to ChatGPT's creator, OpenAI. In a white paper released last week, the firm said it would take a "conservative approach" to image generation while it learned how the "creative community" used the tool.

Social media has recently been flooded with images that looked like they belonged in a Studio Ghibli film. Selfies, family photos and even memes have been re-imagined with the soft pastel palette characteristic of the Japanese animation company founded by Hayao Miyazaki.