Murch Kids Report: First book for kids co-written by computer

by Phylicia Lee
Murch Blue and Gold staff

We live in a time when computers are starting to think like people and do things to affect our lives. This technology is called artificial intelligence (AI) – and Alice and Sparkle is the first children’s book written and illustrated with the help of AI. I was curious to see if I could tell that the book was generated by AI.

Alice and Sparkle, by Ammaar Reshi with Chat GPT (co-author), and Midjourney (illustrator) (ages 7-10)

In the story, a young girl named Alice builds a robot all by herself. She names it Sparkle. They do homework and play video games together.

They always have fun – until Alice starts to get scared of Sparkle’s growing power and ability to make its own decisions. But Alice is able to guide Sparkle in the right direction. They spread knowledge of AI to everyone and live happily ever after.

After reading the book, I realized the power of AI. I could not even tell that AI wrote it. The story made sense and it was fun to read. However, the illustrations were a bit off. In some of the pictures, Alice’s eyes looked too big, and there were too many fingers on her hands.

I understood the message of the book to be that AI was a good thing for society. It already is solving complex problems, freeing humans from boring tasks, improving health care, handling money, making better weather predictions, and helping to manage disasters.

However, there is danger. Imagine Al writing the books we read, doing the work adults do, or deciding things that change our lives. What if AI’s decisions aren’t good ones?

Students already are using AI to do their homework and write their papers. Adults, including leaders of countries, are using AI to spread lies, fooling people into believing things that aren’t true.

Even the authors of Alice and Sparkle recognize the danger. In their story, Alice sees that her creation can be good or evil, depending on how it is guided.

We really have no choice but to watch closely as tech companies continue to expand their uses of AI. I think that if too many bad things happen, we should push for laws making crimes of them. Tech companies should use AI to prevent or uproot the bad things before they can do much harm.

And teachers should educate students about the dangers of AI and teach them to be more critical of what they see and hear on their computers.

Forest Hills Connection is taking a break this week, with the help of talented fourth and fifth grade student reporters from Murch Elementary. With permission, we’re republishing some of the work from the tenth anniversary edition of the Blue and Gold, the student newspaper established in 2013.