3 ms·

> A fun experiment but LLM generated stories will never escape the uncanny valley, because they're not novel, they're remixes. Much of children's best-selling

> A fun experiment but LLM generated stories will never escape the uncanny valley, because they're not novel, they're remixes. Much of children's best-selling fiction is extremely derivative. The way the market works, it's nearly impossible to get things published that aren't extremely derivative. To the extent that, I think this might actually be a good place to start - with auto-generated derivative garbage - and then fix the "problems" with the plot through editing. My first thoughts on this story were pretty negative. The plot is almost incoherent. There's not much conflict. But it does have a little bit of a mystery, and it does get resolved. Although much of it came from out-of-nowhere (The Theme Park), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and many other extremely popular children's books are literary nonsense. The illustration definitely does not fit together well, and is not what you'd expect to get from a book you paid $20 for. But, overall, it's really not bad. I could see a huge market for parents wanting custom books like this generated for their kids about all their zany interests. If your kids loves baking & cute animals & mystery - they'd probably love this story. Maybe it costs $1 or $2 - it's definitely not a big business - it's probably not going to "disrupt" the market (because it's so entrenched I don't even think disruption is possible). If this is too much literary nonsense, I'd love to see what it could do if you asked for the same story "In the style of AA Milne" or Robert Lewis Stevenson or James Mathew Barrie or Beatrix Potter. I can definitely see a near future where almost every parent does this for their kid once or twice a year.

flanbiscuit 4y ago
The true measure is will a very young child notice and/or care. My guess is they won't and they'll like the story. Only the adults reading it will notice something off/weird/"uncanny" about it. But of course, it's the adults buying/distributing these books so you still need to "sell" it to them first.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Kids happily get sucked into Minecraft video narrative "series" with totally insane plots that make no sense and are basically gibberish even line-to-line, and into dirt-cheap Asian and Eastern European CG cartoon imports on Netflix that are barely better. I'm 100% sure a mostly-AI creative process could produce something higher quality than those... um, genres, I guess, today. (seriously, there's some so-cheap-I'm-not-sure-why-they-bothered kids' cartoons on Netflix, if you look for them—you're on the right track if it looks like it was rendered with mid-grade 2005 desktop 3D rendering tech using stock models and stock scenes with way-too-little decoration or clutter, despite in-fact dating no earlier than 2015. A lot of them have whole scenes that are basically just the characters talking in circles. The plots are always extremely straightforward and about 1/5 as much plot as they should need to fill the time, even by very generous reckoning. Lots of interpersonal conflict that amounts to nothing, existing just so they can have two characters have some conflict in a scene to absolutely no thematic-, message-, characterization-, or plot-related end. Most turn out to have been originally produced in India or Romania or something, if you start digging. It's crazy. But young kids will watch these.)
  - MrOwnPut 4y ago
    Kids are like sponges, and pretty much like training an AI. Trash in, trash out. Just because there is a bunch of trash on Netflix and elsewhere doesn't mean we should pollute the kid's world more with it. Especially at the age of reading. 1-5 is the most important age by far...
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Oh, I'm not claiming that content's good for them, I'm reinforcing the notion that it won't be kids who reject crappy AI stories on account of their being crappy. Adults might—and should, if the stories are indeed crappy. Kids will binge content that's truly already on par with or worse than what current AI can accomplish, if you let them.
      - MrOwnPut 4y ago
        Ah, yes I do agree with that.
rubslopes 4y ago
The theme park idea was actually part of the prompt. They show it in the credits

flanbiscuit 4y ago

The true measure is will a very young child notice and/or care. My guess is they won't and they'll like the story. Only the adults reading it will notice something off/weird/"uncanny" about it. But of course, it's the adults buying/distributing these books so you still need to "sell" it to them first.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Kids happily get sucked into Minecraft video narrative "series" with totally insane plots that make no sense and are basically gibberish even line-to-line, and into dirt-cheap Asian and Eastern European CG cartoon imports on Netflix that are barely better. I'm 100% sure a mostly-AI creative process could produce something higher quality than those... um, genres, I guess, today. (seriously, there's some so-cheap-I'm-not-sure-why-they-bothered kids' cartoons on Netflix, if you look for them—you're on the right track if it looks like it was rendered with mid-grade 2005 desktop 3D rendering tech using stock models and stock scenes with way-too-little decoration or clutter, despite in-fact dating no earlier than 2015. A lot of them have whole scenes that are basically just the characters talking in circles. The plots are always extremely straightforward and about 1/5 as much plot as they should need to fill the time, even by very generous reckoning. Lots of interpersonal conflict that amounts to nothing, existing just so they can have two characters have some conflict in a scene to absolutely no thematic-, message-, characterization-, or plot-related end. Most turn out to have been originally produced in India or Romania or something, if you start digging. It's crazy. But young kids will watch these.)
- MrOwnPut 4y ago
  Kids are like sponges, and pretty much like training an AI. Trash in, trash out. Just because there is a bunch of trash on Netflix and elsewhere doesn't mean we should pollute the kid's world more with it. Especially at the age of reading. 1-5 is the most important age by far...
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Oh, I'm not claiming that content's good for them, I'm reinforcing the notion that it won't be kids who reject crappy AI stories on account of their being crappy. Adults might—and should, if the stories are indeed crappy. Kids will binge content that's truly already on par with or worse than what current AI can accomplish, if you let them.
    - MrOwnPut 4y ago
      Ah, yes I do agree with that.

rubslopes 4y ago

The theme park idea was actually part of the prompt. They show it in the credits