[gambiting]

I dislike every single thing about this. Services like Spotify and others are now absolutely flooded with AI generated kids stories, it's so hard to find anything with even an ounce of soul among all the slop.

As a parent, I really see that as a cancer that keeps spreading among children media. I appreciate you probably thought this is a good idea for a business or a project in general but for the sake of our children and us all - please stop.

[frankhorrigan]

Absolutely agree. This might be a fun personal project. But things like this only hasten the decline towards a dead internet where human-created things with heart and intent are impossible to locate among the dregs of paper-thin AI drivel which only approximates human invention.

Just because we can does not mean we should.

[xcanchal]

I'm a parent myself and my daughter (3YO) won't stop asking me new stories everyday.

I kind of get your point but the moments I've been sharing with her thanks to this project are priceless.

[gambiting]

So I've been trying to think of a reply to you that isn't personal.....so I'll use my own son as an example.

If I used this project to tell my son stories, I would be worried that all of it is ultimately disposable. He might remember a story he liked years later but it won't exist unless I saved the PDF. It doesn't have an author that you might look up and see their other works There's no one behind it. You might think this is worthless, especially for a child as young as 3, but I assure you it's not.

It is, like someone else called it - ghastly. It's an echo of what actual kids stories are.

[xcanchal]

You know printers exist right? You can create a physical book in which he'll be the main character of the story in whatever scenario he likes the most. I remember receiving one of those as a child and I remembered it for life. Try asking for a famous author to create that one for you.

There's not just a single way of doing emotionally valuable things and/or a single way of doing "right" things.

[gambiting]

>>You can create a physical book in which he'll be the main character of the story in whatever scenario he likes the most. I remember receiving one of those as a child and I remembered it for life.

And I believe that this is not only inherently worse than reading existing stories, it's actively bad for our children and us a society. Obviously it looks like we'll disagree on this.

[frumper]

Media for kids has been filled with soulless junk long before AI stepped in. You've always needed to find trustworthy sources to filter through it.

[gambiting]

I mean, I don't think I agree - like most things with AI, the scale is just unprecedented, because producing more content costs very very little. When previously you had an occasional budget production made without any care for it, whether it's an audio story or an illustrated book, nowadays I encourage you to just open Spotify and search for "kids stories" - I'd wager that 90% is AI generated, with the same kind of storylines, illustrations posted by accounts with no history or a real name - it's just slop designed to extract whatever money they can by absolutely flooding the platform with this. Budget productions always existed, this didn't(imho).

[fennecbutt]

I somewhat agree, but it's pointless.

People still go to McDonald's.

[frankhorrigan]

So just because things are going to get worse we should accept each new horrible thing with open arms?

Nope, let’s keep fighting against the things which cheapen our world and support those who enrich our lives.

[amelius]

But these are still humans. Would you buy food that was designed and cooked by an AI?

[Dylan16807]

As long as it hit the right temperatures, sure I guess.

Weird example though, I care about a human touch in stories far more than in convenience food.

[fennecbutt]

Yup.