The little educational robot
And who cleans the room? Finn, Mia – or Ki?
Source: Kaleidoskop-Verlag
What happens when four people and one artificial intelligence write a children’s book? Something that is even more stuffy than a Conni Pixi ribbon. All that was needed was the ominous alliance of two experts who had previously had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
JEvery time the artificial intelligence has learned something new, the natural one is wide awake. Some are afraid that the machine could take their jobs away from them. The others sense opportunities. Couldn’t chat software write screenplays instead of having to deal with bitchy author egos? Could you still complete your studies with algorithmic tutoring, for which you were too stupid for 18 semesters?
And, as long as the stuff is relatively new, couldn’t you churn out a few dozen newspaper articles every day exploring what it means for the human race that the AI already has advertising slogans, school essays, Nick Cave songs or application letters? – to finally attest to the computer competition, how much it still lacks in humor, wit, intuition and communicative elegance, all virtues that characterize us carbon entities with bio-brains in abundance?
However, the knowledge gain of such reflection essays is underwhelming. It just tells you that far too many people are writing the same thing. Master human thinkers are too vain to conclude that the overthrow of natural intelligence by artificial intelligence could be a promise. And the fact that GPT-3 can spit out just as meaningful reflection essays, university assignments or humanities papers as humans, is never a plausible argument for the abolition of such tediousness.
So it is not surprising that there is now a children’s book that not only deals with artificial intelligence, but also immediately puts it within its speciesistic limits. Being human consists of recognizing the signs of the times, seizing market opportunities, but always insisting on the supremacy of the humane.
“What’s green and can’t sing?”
“Mia, Finn and the little robot Ki” is the name of the story published by the Swiss publisher Kaleidoskop, in which GPT-3 also co-wrote four people. She tells about eight-year-old Mia, who gets a robot named Ki from her mom. But Ki doesn’t manage to carry out the girl’s orders to her satisfaction. When the robot is supposed to tidy up the children’s room, it sorts everything by colour, and instead of being happy about it, Mia throws her hands up in horror: “Cleaning up means putting things back in the right place and the right place!”
When playing football, Ki shoots into his own goal instead of into the opponent’s goal. When he’s supposed to make a pizza, he smashes strawberries and whole, unpeeled eggs onto the dough. While reading a bedtime story, he falls asleep in the middle of a sentence because his battery is dead. And artificial intelligence can’t tell good jokes (“What’s green and can’t sing? A cable.”)
Unfortunately, neither does natural intelligence. “Mia, Finn and the little robot Ki” is even more humorous and stuffy than any Conni Pixi book. Nonsense is not appropriate when two women, two men, an illustrator and a child psychologist and a robotics researcher have dedicated themselves to the mission of explaining to the little ones and their parents how the future will go: reassuringly like them Present.
Only what’s already on it is allowed on a pizza, victories in sport shouldn’t be given away, human friendships are better than talking to robots even if you don’t have anything to say to each other. And you clean up your room yourself, if you please.
Mia, Finn and the little robot Ki, kaleidoscope, 104 pages, €21.90