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AI children's books, body horror edition

The article critiques AI-generated children's books, highlighting how they often produce unsettling, body-horror-like imagery and nonsensical narratives due to current limitations in generative AI, raising concerns about quality control and the potential psychological impact on young readers.

Background

- The article is by Michał "lcamtuf" Zalewski, a well-known Polish security researcher (creator of AFL fuzzer, former Google engineer) who now writes about technology and AI on Substack. - It critiques the trend of publishing AI-generated children's books on Amazon, which has exploded due to tools like Midjourney, DALL-E, and ChatGPT. The "body horror" refers to grotesque anatomical errors (extra fingers, distorted faces, melted limbs) common in AI art. - The piece argues that these books flood the marketplace, undermine professional illustrators, and expose children to uncanny, poorly-vetted content. The author views this as a symptom of a larger race-to-the-bottom in creative industries driven by generative AI. - No specific scandal or legislation is cited; it's a commentary on the current state of AI-generated consumer goods in 2024-2025.

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