AI begins telling bedtime stories to kids amid legal, ethical concerns

SAN FRANCISCO: As ChatGPT creates new use cases, some developers have created AI-based models that can tell bedtime stories to kids based on their favourite characters.

However, it has also raised legal and ethical concerns one such story generator called Bluey-GPT begins each session by asking kids their name, age and a bit about their day, then churns out personalised tales starring Bluey and her sister Bingo.

"It names her school, the area she lives in, and talks about the fact it's cold outside. It makes it more real and engaging,” its London-based developer Luke Warner told Wired.

With ChatGPT, anyone can generate personalised stories starring their kid and their favourite character.

Story-making apps such as Oscar, Once Upon a Bot, and Bedtimestory.ai use generic characters or those that are in the public domain. Some apps include AI-generated illustrations or the option to have the story read aloud.

However, “the stories churned out by AI aren't anywhere as good as the show itself, and raise legal and ethical concerns,” the report noted.

“In the UK, the legal protections for characters include names as well as backstory, mannerisms, and expressions,” according to Xuyang Zhu, a lawyer at the firm Taylor Wessing.

“That copyright can be infringed if a character is replicated in another context in a way that reproduces enough of these aspects," Zhu was quoted as saying in the report.

Character-specific GPTs create more trademark problems than copyright ones, according to experts. Story-making apps such as Oscar, Once Upon a Bot, and Bedtimestory.ai use generic characters or those that are in the public domain.

Some apps include AI-generated illustrations or the option to have the story read aloud.

Another concern with bots that create stories for kids is “making sure what they churn out is actually safe for children."