Once upon a time there was AI: if fairy tales are told by artificial intelligence

In a book released in 2021, Klara and the sunNobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro tells of a world in which, thanks to what appears to be a pandemic, families all live very far from each other, isolated. And so, to give children the opportunity to have relationships, there are AAs, Artificial Friends: little human-like robots, programmed to be constantly supportive to the little ones, at any moment of their life. A scenario, the one told by Ishiguro, which may not be so far from reality.

“In a few years, ChatGPT could be integrated into toys, to tell stories and interact with children”: said Allan Wong, CEO of VTech Holdings, in an interview with the Financial Timesa world leader in the production of electronic learning toys.

Specifically, Wong expects teddy bears from talking soft toys, which use artificial intelligence to interact with the little ones and tell them bedtime stories: “AI can be used to generate personalized stories – explained Wong – starting from the child’s name, his daily activities, the school he attends, his friends. This way, the interaction would be believable. I think there are many possibilities in this sense”.

It will still take a while, however, to see toys powered by artificial intelligence: the CEO of VTech talks about the 2028, when the technology will be cheaper and most importantly, more mature and hopefully safe for children to use.

Inventing stories with AI: the idea of ​​Infinite Stories

However, that of the smallest remains one of the markets in which those who develop applications for artificial intelligence are trying to enter. A example is Infinite Stories, a digital platform which allows you to create stories in collaboration with AI.

The process here is a little more collaborative: the system can create input from predefined characters and stories or starting from a human stimulus. At that point, the AI ​​creates story pieces, which can then be completed by the user.

The goal, reads the platform, is “develop creativityexpand vocabulary and encourage connection through active storytelling”.

An automatic learning assistant

But there are not only stories: the relationship between AI and children risks being destined for experiences much wider than the simple construction of stories. At the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, Bill Gates spoke about artificial intelligence as a tool available to students, a sort of personalized learning assistant: “There is nothing better for learning than a personal tutor who observes your progress and your interests and constantly adapts to you – he said Gates – AIs will achieve that ability, they can be tutors as capable as any human. We have enough data to train systems in this direction. It seems to me something to aim for, and we are not that far away ”.

The idea behind this way of thinking is that you can automate a part of the teachers’ work: in an article that appeared on CNBC there is talk of the possibility, for each student of any age, of having a personalized assistant at their disposal, to “explore the textbooks together and adapt the teaching methods to all the different learning styles”.

Curiosity

Who am I? What is love? It will all be fine? Us and the weird questions we ask Google

by Carlo Lavalle

30 June 2023

Can artificial intelligence really teach?

Is it really that easy? Is a well-trained AI enough to complement a teacher’s work? Second Rina Bliss, professor of Sociology at Rutgers University and author of the book Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potentialthe answer is simply no.

“This model of collaborative learning with AI often involves an individual who work alone with a bot – wrote Bliss in an article in the Washington Post – The latter can collect information to help students find information, can solve a problem or can find a creative way to move forward. But AI doesn’t force students to actually think or learn anything. And simply learning is not being fed facts and information.”