“The age of ice is over. Welcome to the age of fridges! The ones who thought they were in the business of selling ice vanished. The ones who realized they were in the business of keeping things cool built empires. The same goes for programmers: if you think your job is to write code, you're melting. If you know you're here to solve problems, you'll keep the whole system running."
Marian Andrei: Good morning, and welcome back! The Ghibli trend has taken over the internet, and now everyone seems to be posting images created in that style. To talk about the trend, how it was created, and how it went viral, we’re joined by Viorel Spînu, a consultant and researcher in the field of artificial intelligence. Good morning!
Viorel Spînu: Thank you for inviting me!
Marian Andrei: This Ghibli phenomenon is really interesting. It basically made ChatGPT go viral again, and from what I understand, it brought in a massive wave of new users in just one hour. I heard it hit a million.
Viorel Spînu: I read that too — one million.
Marian Andrei: A million? In just one hour?
Viorel Spînu: Yes. At one point, they said that when they launched the first version, it took five days to reach a million users. Now, with this feature, they reached that number in just an hour. I read that last night.
Marian Andrei: So I just gave it a photo like this and said, "make me Ghibli style." That’s all. Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio. It's very well known and extremely popular. And now it seems like... this is the image it made in that animation style. If I were the studio, I’d feel a bit offended. I spent years developing this art style, building a loyal audience — and now...
Viorel Spînu: Absolutely, and I get that, it's completely fair. I’m sure that’s exactly how it feels. In fact, the head of the studio made a rather sharp comment in that direction. And I understand that. But on the other hand, if it were just an individual painting in that style, would they be just as upset? I don’t think so. I think the real issue isn’t that someone is using the style. The issue is that someone is scaling the use of that style to a level where it becomes available to everyone. The problem isn’t that AI generates images in that style. The problem is that it does it really fast. And really well.
Marian Andrei: Very fast, exactly. In like a minute. They were even saying on their Discord that their servers were running at full capacity and that it was costing them a lot of money.
Viorel Spînu: In the first few days, I only had access to something like three pictures a day. Now I’ve noticed they’ve lifted the limit.
Marian Andrei: Even though you were paying.
Viorel Spînu: Yes.
Marian Andrei: Interesting. So even though you were paying, access was limited.
Viorel Spînu: And then, they’d tell me that if I exceeded three, four, five images, I’d have to wait seven minutes. And it really enforced those seven minutes. I tried to cheat. "Come on, it’s been long enough!" — "Nope, you still have four minutes to go."
Marian Andrei: Ah, so they wouldn’t let you...
Viorel Spînu: Exactly because the servers were already overloaded.
Marian Andrei: It’s been almost three years since ChatGPT was launched, right? That’s about where we are. How do you see the evolution of AI right now? We’re also looking at other models, like Google’s Gemini 2.5, which is already being integrated into many apps, and so on.
Viorel Spînu: I’d rather offer a different perspective. You see, that image stuff — it’s a consumer space. You go in and make an image. It’s cool. You get a certain vibe... It’s fun and playful. But beyond that, which is more like a game, there are really serious things being done with AI.
Marian Andrei: Name one area.
Viorel Spînu: Programming. I come from a background where I spent a lot of time writing code. For the past two and a half years, I haven’t written any code. I don’t write code anymore. I’m still a programmer, still building software systems, still programming.
Marian Andrei: It’s your job.
Viorel Spînu: It is, but I don’t write code myself anymore. Because I use an AI system to write the code for me.
Marian Andrei: But how well does it do that?
Viorel Spînu: If I coordinate the process, it does it way better than I could alone. If I let it go wild without direction, it performs poorly. That’s where we are right now.
Marian Andrei: So how fast can you program using AI compared to you alone three years ago? Or how many people like you would it take now?
Viorel Spînu: About 10–20 times faster. And I’m talking about technologies I already know. If you took me into a new technology four years ago, I’d need two or three days to read, get familiar. Now, if I’m thrown into a new tech, it takes me two minutes. Because I understand the concepts. No matter the tech, I get the idea. So for the detailed stuff I don’t already know — I don’t even want to learn it anymore. AI handles that part.
Marian Andrei: But what about jobs Romania is well known for? We’ve got great talent here. Aren’t those jobs in danger? Because we see these models improving. Gemini 2.5, which just came out — the advanced version — is really good at programming. Even I can start coding now, bit by bit. Even if I fumble a little, if I want something, I can get it done.
Viorel Spînu: You know, back in the day, people used to cut ice blocks in winter. There were companies specialized in cutting ice and storing it in cellars to sell in the summer. Then refrigerators came along. The ones who thought their business was selling ice disappeared. The ones who realized their business was providing cooling services started selling refrigerators. The same thing will happen here. Programmers who think their job is writing code — yes, they’ll vanish or move on to something else. Programmers who understand their job is to provide creative solutions and deliver value will still be called programmers. The profession won’t disappear. But it will change. A programmer won’t write code. A programmer will deliver solutions.
Marian Andrei: Cursor is one of the tools that helps you code, and it’s really interesting. Other publications, including CNBC, have written about the Ghibli trend and traced it back to the original creator. You can find more info on our website, stirile.protv.ro, in the “elegant URL” section. Once again, thank you so much!
Viorel Spînu: Thank you!
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