A trend toward personalized children’s books generated by artificial intelligence is gaining momentum in the West. The older generation is mass-ordering illustrated fairy tales with the faces and names of their grandchildren, but this is causing outrage among parents and disappointment among the children themselves.
A trend toward personalized children’s books generated by artificial intelligence is gaining momentum in the West. The older generation is mass-ordering illustrated fairy tales with the faces and names of their grandchildren, but this is causing outrage among parents and disappointment among the children themselves.
This is reported by Wired, which investigated a new source of family disputes and cybersecurity concerns.
Thanks to services like Imagitime, StoryWonderBook, and Childbook.ai, creating a fairy tale has become a simple task. It is enough to upload pictures of the child and specify a few details about their life. However, for many parents this has become a red flag because of the threat of leakage of personal data of minors, which their relatives allow.
«I have said countless times that I do not support art created by artificial intelligence, and have made it a point not to upload photos to the AI. However, she creates storylines based on her experiences with my child and uses family members’ names,» one parent said about his mother on Reddit.
In addition to the privacy risks, such publications demonstrate low artistic value. According to parents, children quickly lose interest in algorithmically generated tales about themselves.
«They’re so long and wordy that after reading them once, my kids said, 'Okay, let’s read 'The Little Blue Truck,'» the father of two said.
Macquarie University researcher Daozhi Xu notes that children value a compelling story above all else, not just having their own name or face on the page. He says AI versions lack humor, vivid characters, and dramatic tension. Instead, the main danger lies in the lack of transparency about how children’s photos are stored on platforms and whether they are shared with third parties to train models.
