I know I have ranted about this before, but: now I am running across entire websites with "folktales" that don't exist, referencing sources that also don't exist.
Why is it a problem, you ask? A story is a story?
No. Not if it is assigned to an actual existing culture. If it is claimed to represent the heritage of an indigenous tradition. Oral tradition is endangered already in many ways. We don't need AI to enshittify this.
Check your sources.
And finally, a #StorytellingPSA:
There is no such thing as "I generated a new folktale with AI!"
(Yes, someone has actually tried to convince me AI will make me new folktales to tell.)
That might be a tale, but it's not "folk." Folktales are part of a community's oral tradition. They work because people have told and told and retold them. You can't plonk a chunck of text down and call it a folktale. Connection is the whole point.
/end rant
Once more, for the people in the back:
An "epic hero" (*cough* Odysseus *cough*) is not an "epic hero" because they are a role model that does everything right. They were never meant to be an unproblematic fandom icon.
People bending themselves into pretzels to prove Odysseus (and others) never did anything wrong, questionable, or "problematic" are doing a disservice and flattening mythology into fan fiction.
Said what I said.
Someone on another platform today told me a myth is "not in Homer, so it's not canon."
#StorytellingPSA: That's not how mythology works.
Ran into a fully #AI generated "folktale" collection 😡 If the two-headed raccoon had not been enough:
"The most popular European fairy tale with a raccoon is The Three Little Pigs. Another is The Brementown Musicians"
"In African folklore raccoons are good luck."
Most readers can identify the inaccuracy with 3 Little Pigs, but few would spot problems with "Native American" or "African" stories. And AI makes up A LOT of that crap.
#StorytellingPSA 🦝 Please don't use AI for #folklore research!
Because the stories we tell matter. The stories we highlight matter. The heroes of those stories matter. And the canon needs to expand.
#women #epics #WomensEpics #WomensHistory #storytelling #StorytellingPSA #books #literature
I overheard someone discussing Aladdin with their kid. "See, the moral is that you shouldn't steal."
Like... really? THAT'S what you took away from that movie?...
(This is why we don't spell out morals for tales, people.)
I am a storyteller and author. I'm an extremely visual person, I see stories in color and detail in my head. I can't draw or paint for shit (yes I practiced). However, I have been lucky and privileged to meet amazing artists along the way. Getting to know each other, admiring each other's art, having long conversations and playful exchanges, sharing enthusiasm, creating together, has enriched my life and my stories immensely.
AI. Will. Never do that.
AI as a research tool for storytelling is useless.
You ask it for folktales, it makes stories up. You ask it for sources for those tales, it makes books up. You ask for real books, it gives you books that don't contain the story you want.
It also misattributes made-up stories to existing cultures. Often indigenous ones.
I have had several conversations with actual storytellers using ChatGPT to find "authentic" myths and folktales. It scares me.
Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág
Kenneth