- Bedtime stories with my five-year old are the favorite time of the day for my husband and me.
- The challenge is coming up with new stories, so I used ChatGPT to come up with bespoke, fun tales.
Bedtime routine is often the biggest stress point of the day, especially if you have eager little ones with a long wish list of bedtime stories.
We start with a Gruffalo to a "Peppa Pig" and then go to "Jack and the Beanstalk," Elmer, the "Cave Baby" and we are still on the hunt for more. Sigh!
Bedtime stories are a big thing in our household. It's also the best part of the day for my husband and me because we get to spend time doing something creative with our son.
We started off with bedtime stories when our son was three-months old. Little did he understand what was being read to him then, but over the years it has become an important part of the bedtime routine. At least he didn't have a choice then and coo-ed and blabbered all along.
But, while we started off with nice and easy bedtime stories, we seemed to have moved very quickly to a phase where our 5-year old comes up with characters and we are then tasked to build a bedtime story around it. Some days, there is a mix of Captain America, Black Widow, Luke Skywalker and Lionel Messi and some days it is Thanos, Spiderman, Scarlet Witch and Darth Vader.
As much as I enjoy being creative, I often find myself struggling with new storylines each day. Some days, I use the plot from Avengers and throw in a bit of "Star Wars" in it. And some days, I go the classic route with "Jungle Book" and "Ice Age" and integrate the characters in the plot.
And so, I tapped my new friend for help – ChatGPT. As journalists, we have all been thrown into the deep end trying to understand how AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard are going to affect our lives. They have pros and cons, but when ChatGPT can write a bedtime story for your kid and he loves it, it's a win-win.
How did we do it?
A few nights ago, my son said he wanted a story about Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and himself. We dictated a prompt to ChatGPT and I saw my son's eyes light up as the story got populated within seconds. "Wow, that's like magic," he screamed with joy. I did too, if only to myself.
We found ourselves dictating multiple prompts, each time giving a few more details and the story was better than ever.
For instance, for the second story we gave ChatGPT a few more details. We described the plot and then gave a few more details about the characters in this plot.
This helped us get more color in the story and made it an even more enjoyable experience for my son. He couldn't believe "how this robot knows so much" about him.
The challenge now is to limit our bedtime creative exercise to one story a day. Oh and to keep the paperback alive. Help!