Frequently Asked Questions

What is the purpose of this app?

When AI first burst on the scene with ChatGPT in late 2022, it quickly became clear that it would have profound implications for companies and society at large. But the technology behind it – Large Language Models – is quite complicated. Business people found it hard to understand, and even harder to keep up with the rapid change. Everyone knew it would be important in their industry/company, but what is AI? And what can I apply it to?

Kid Creations is an experimental AI app built by strategic consultancy Science House using our AI Rapid Prototyping technology. We use it with clients to help them better understand AI, and to get them thinking about what parts of their business it could transform.

The Kid Creations app makes AI less theoretical and more practical/concrete, builds greater understanding of AI, and gives employees a peek at what is possible – all while encouraging questions and creating a space to engage comfortably.

Companies can work with Science House and learn from our AI Prototypes. We can also work with you to develop your own AI Prototypes that meet your specific business needs – getting working applications in the hands of employees that drive greater innovation around the applications of AI.

What does the app do?

Kid Creations generates your very own story, complete with text, images, sound effects, and even some animation and 3D effects. It offers a wide array of choices for different story elements, including the genre, the main character, the setting and time period, and others. You can even type in your own story elements if you don’t see something you want listed in the options. For example, you could select “Princess” as the main character of a Fairy Tale, and then type in “with short hair” to customize the character.

How does it achieve that?

The app takes the inputs you choose and creates a set of prompts to various LLMs to generate the pieces of content. There are separate prompts to an LLM for the text of the story, to an image generator to illustrate the story, and to apps that generate audio for the narration and sound effects. Then the app gathers all the pieces and knits them together for you.

I just created a story with my child, and I want to save it to read it again later. How can I do that?

When you finish a story you can go back to the controls on the Story Generator page. At the bottom of that page there is a button called “Save Story” which saves the story into a personal library for you. You can come back later and click on “Library” in the top menu bar and pick any one of your stored stories to read again.

What age ranges is this AI book designed for?

The AI book is currently designed for young children, but we are adding more new story genres all the time – some of which are suitable for older kids. When you first log in, you can go to the ‘Parental Setup’ page and enter the age of the child. This age will be used to create story text at a level appropriate for your child.

What is the ‘Parental Setup’ page for?

This page allows you a level of customization of your child’s experience with the Kid Creations app. Providing the age of your child allows the app to set a level of story text, so that younger children, for example, get story text that uses simpler words. Entering a parent’s phone number or email address allows the child to send a story image that they liked directly to the parent. The illustration style is set by default to ‘photograph’, but that could be set to ‘cartoon’ or ‘comic’ if the parent finds that more suitable for the child. Once an illustration style is set, all stories generated will be in that style until the illustration style is changed to something else. We suggest leaving the illustration style as ‘photograph’ and then generating some stories to get a feel for the story output. Once you have some experience then you can experiment with other styles. Some story genres, like ‘Mystery’, lend themselves to the ‘pencil sketch’ style – but feel free to experiment and see what works best for you. We ask that you read and agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and check the box stating that you agree to supervise your child when they are generating stories. Once you have agreed to these three elements you can click the ‘submit’ button and begin generating stories!

Can a child create a story by themselves?

Children tend to benefit from some guidance, especially when creating their first book. But the app is designed so that children can quickly get to the point where they can generate stories on their own. However, your use of the AI book software does require that an adult be present when a child is creating a new story to moderate if needed.

How do I know that it will not create inappropriate output?

The AI generated text, images, and videos come from companies that already have guardrails in place for inappropriate content. But your use of the AI book software requires that an adult be present when a child is creating a new story so that if any inappropriate content is generated the book can be discarded and replaced with a newly generated story. AI does sometimes generate weird images, like a person with three arms or too many fingers on one hand. This effect is most common in videos, where the arm of a character may go through a table or a character may float up in the air for no apparent reason.

What kind of stories can be created?

Stories can be created in several genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mystery, education, humor, western, and fairy tale.

Can I have some input into the story that’s created for my child beyond that requested on the Story Generation page?

We will soon be testing a new feature in which parents can add elements to a story via text messaging. For example, the parent might send a text message that the next story generated by their child should show a character eating their vegetables or doing their homework.

Can I send an image from a story to my phone to use?

We allow a child to select an image generated in a story that they particularly like and have that image sent to a phone, but we restrict that to a parent’s phone so that they can make sure the content is appropriate. The child could then direct the parent to send the image to another child or parent of another child.

What can a child learn from this software?

There are many different things that a child can learn from the AI book, including: Introducing them to what AI can do by showing output in the format of text, image, video, audio, and 3D. The child quickly understands how their choices affect the output of the stories, and they begin to get a sense of what AI can do in partnership with the child. Our user interface allows a child to simply click on buttons, with our software then bringing together those elements to send out to a number of AI providers. Learning about the structure of stories, and how that structure can be useful in telling stories to other people. After generating a handful of stories, creating a new story from scratch in their own mind for a school project will be much easier and more powerful. Learning the art of storytelling at a young age will also prepare kids for business presentations and project updates in meetings. Kids can request educational content via the app. For example, our ‘Animal’ genre provides documentary-style information for more than 50 animals, such as a story about whales that explains what whales eat and how they breathe.

I would like to suggest a new feature or tell you about a software problem. Who should I send that to?

You can send an email to info@sciencehouse.com and we will look into your idea, or the issue.

I am having trouble playing audio when using the Safari browser, what can I do to fix this?

Try going to Safari 'Settings', then 'Websites', 'Auto-Play', and for the Kid Creations website select 'Allow All Auto-Play' from the drop-down menu.

Can I share images or story text on social media?

During our Beta trial period we would ask you not to post anything to social media.

Does Science House have any other AI apps that I can look at?

We released Canine Detective in August of 2024 and Word Golf in October 2024 There are several other AI apps on the way, but viewing them may require setting up a demo with our team. To set up a demo, email us at info@sciencehouse.com.