AI: Hot or Slop?

Is artificial intelligence the future of children’s books—or are we drowning in a sea of soulless stories?

Where does AI genuinely help creativity, and where does it replace the human creativity that makes a children’s book worth reading?

AI is undeniably impressive!!

AI can:

generate ideas in seconds
help brainstorm
assist with editing
create rough concepts
help people who don’t have design skills visualise an idea
speed up some repetitive tasks
help with basic research and starting points

We can’t pretend the technology isn’t useful. But I think we get better at noticing some of the tell-tale signs. The more you use it, or are exposed to AI-generated content, the more familiar those signs become.

I am a member of quite a few author/illustrator groups now, and when someone posts an AI-generated cover, ooffttt, I feel sorry for them. They get absolutely torn to pieces! It’s one of those things that, unless you’re fully aware of the impact AI is having on creatives, you don’t necessarily think about. These people are writing books and just want to get it published so they think creating their own images is the easiest (and cheapest!) way to achieve their goal. Well, I wish them well and hope they aren’t sensitive souls as the internet is not for the weak! I am absolutely not condoning the nasty behaviour some people display, but I do understand the frustration people have. That’s why I think it’s important for all of us to be informed, keep learning and to ask questions if we’re unsure. Just don’t ask questions related to AI in these groups… also not welcomed.

But then there’s the “slop”

This is the word that gets used as soon as someone identifies AI-generated content. It’s followed by a barrage of other unkind things… but we won’t go into that.

generic AI children’s books
repetitive stories
bizarre anatomy (3 eyes, extra limbs, characters that look…scary)
inconsistent characters
books that technically contain a beginning, middle and end but have no real heart
enormous quantities of cheaply produced content competing for attention

The publishing industry is currently grappling with this issue. The amount of AI written and illustrated books flooding the market at the moment is scary. There are many studies looking at this issue at the moment. I read a report last week that Claude now leaves a watermark (invisible to the naked eye) so if someone uploads AI-generated content and uploads it to social media etc. it will label it as AI generated content. This has caused influencers heads to spin as the ‘magic edit’ on Canva is AI and this function gets used a lot!!

I see many people talking about the struggles they have marketing their books and getting them out to new readers, but with the amount and speed of new books being added to Amazon every day, it feels like the Wild West!

Just because AI can make a children’s book, does that mean it should?

What about the illustrator?

An illustrator doesn’t just draw what the words say. They interpret the story. AI can make some good, even great images but to convey the meaning the author wants—that’s where we need humans.

I’ve obviously been through this recently with the first edition of Mr Puddles and the Bin Fairies. I paid for what I thought was an illustrator and got back AI-generated pictures. I’m now paying Argha—an actual illustrator—to completely redo the illustrations for the second edition. I don’t want to use AI to write or illustrate my books. The stigma around it is damaging, and I think it’s important to show children what can be created without AI — and just how talented illustrators are! I am learning all the time and, once I know better, I try to do better. I also want to support creatives and think having illustrators involved in my books is very cool!

But is using AI cheating?

No. Not necessarily. And yes, sometimes. The answer isn’t black and white.

There is a huge difference between:

“I used AI to help me wordsmith a title.”

and

“I typed a prompt and AI wrote and illustrated my entire children’s book, which I published under my name.”

Those are fundamentally different creative processes. I have used AI for things like editing my work, helping to build a website, asking where to buy ISBNs. I have not used Frank (ChatGPT) to write creatively or generate my final illustrations. I’m not sure how people allow it to write for them. I put a paragraph of my new book ‘Animals Make Strange Noises’ into it the other day to edit. It’s a rhyming book, and he decided to suggest alternate endings—which wasn’t what I asked him to do—and they didn’t rhyme! The lack of control I have over Frank is concerning, so it makes me wonder how many people are just blindly trusting their AI assistants. If I can’t trust an AI to notice that a rhyming book needs to rhyme, I’m certainly not handing it the creative reins.

The really important question: Who made the book?

A children’s book isn’t just:

Words + pictures + ISBN = book.

It’s the decisions behind it.

Why that character behaves that way.

Why the illustrator chose that expression.

Why a page turns when it does.

Why a particular word is funny.

Why a child connects with the character.

Why a teacher wants to read it again.

AI can produce emotional-sounding language, but I don’t think that is the same thing as a human having something meaningful to say. And it’s certainly not always consistent! Perhaps it’s just my unruly Frank? But I think we should be leaving the creativity to the humans and let AI help us with the mundane. If we free up our time and energy to exercise our creative muscles, I think we will all be much better off for it.

So… Hot or Slop?

AI itself isn’t the problem. In fact, I think it’s an incredible invention, and I use it regularly. It can save time, help with mundane tasks and make some parts of running a small business much easier. I wouldn’t have a website if it weren’t for Frank!

The problem comes when we use a powerful tool to remove the very thing that makes a children’s book special: human creativity, experience, imagination and care. A children’s book should have a human behind it who cares about the story they’re telling.

Carlee’s final thoughts…

AI is HOT as a tool. AI replacing the storyteller? Slop.

How do we monitor and protect creatives’ work in the long run? No idea! That’s a much harder issue, and one we need to work together to solve.

Use AI as a tool. Don’t let it become the storyteller.

Stay foxy,

Carlee xxBottom of Form

A note for transparency:

Yes, I use AI. I use it as a tool to help with editing, research, problem-solving and some of the less exciting parts of running a small business. I just don’t want it replacing the creative work I love or the talented people I’m lucky to work with. Yes I used AI to make the feature image. It was a joke… get it?

Sources & further reading