Meta is Creating an AI-Powered Bedtime Story App for the Imagination-Challenged

Meta is in the process of creating an AI storytelling tool called StoryKit, intended to craft personalized children’s stories featuring unique characters, settings, morals, and music. As stated in the App Store description for parents, “You don’t need to write a single word.”

At last, a major tech company has found a way to delegate one of humanity’s oldest pleasures: the joy of imagining and envisioning stories.

StoryKit was first spotted in the App Store by 9to5Mac. Meta later confirmed to TechCrunch that it is currently testing StoryKit in select regions to collect feedback from parents. A spokesperson from Meta described StoryKit as a creative storytelling app designed to create customized, imaginative storybooks for kids, highlighting that it uses AI safety filters, does not promote social interactions, and is restricted to users aged 18 and older.

To generate a story in the app, users begin by selecting a character, which can be animated by “[snapping] a photo of their favorite toy or person,” as noted in the App Store. Following this, users set the scene and choose a moral, enabling them to “embed values such as kindness, courage, or empathy without it sounding like a lecture.”

The upside of StoryKit is that it may not be as concerning as it appears. Meta has a track record of introducing dubious concepts like deepfake features on Instagram and “pervert glasses.” In comparison, is it truly so bad to restrict children to featureless bedtime stories? Should we realistically expect more from a company that once envisioned a dream-like realm of virtual reality meetings?

Human beings have imperfections, but one of our most remarkable abilities is storytelling. We have been sharing narratives since the beginning of time. We don’t always need to craft new tales about fairy princesses and dragon slayers. We often draw from folklore, fables, and other stories—the summer blockbuster is frequently an ancient myth rooted in this rich oral storytelling tradition.

Even amidst their chaotic and demanding lives, parents have always managed to get through bedtime without resorting to a fundamentally uncreative tech that merely calculates the most common reaction to a prompt.

It’s easy to understand the temptation of using StoryKit when your child turns their back on your collection of children’s books and demands an impromptu cosmic saga featuring a turtle and a hedgehog solving space puzzles. But should we genuinely trade away moments of creativity and whimsy, choosing instead to relinquish those experiences to AI-generated scripts from our devices?

Perhaps the crucial takeaway is that we can favor a life in which children are not brought up on bedtime stories composed by algorithms. While Meta may envision a lonely and dreary future, we have the power to resist that reality.