In an enterprise once thought to be uniquely human, artificial intelligence (AI) is now telling stories that remind us of tales as old as time. Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, uses her cloud-based voice service to collaborate with users to create personalized fairy tales.
Another example of AI storytelling, embedded in the Calm meditation and sleep app, claims to provide its listeners cloned fairy tales: "The Grimm Brothers used quill and ink; Botnik and Calm used a computer program and human intuition to find patterns in the Grimm’s writing, and replicate those patterns using predictive text to describe new characters and situations." Listeners can decide whether the result, like a tale called "The Princess and the Fox," is as satisfying to the soul as traditional stories are.
Time will tell if Alexa can catch up to Mother Goose—and maybe even overtake her.