The problem with Bluish there isn’t enough of it. Even with 151 seven-minute episodes of the hit children’s animated series, parents of toddlers are still desperately waiting for Australia’s Ludo Studio to release another season. The only way to get more Bluish faster is when they create their own stories starring the Brisbane-based family of blue heel dogs.
Luke Warner did this – with generative AI. The London-based developer and father used OpenAI’s latest tool, customizable bots called GPTs, to create a story generator for his young daughter. The bot, which he calls Bluey-GPT, starts each session by asking people their name, age and a little about their day, then tells personalized stories starring Bluey and her sister Bingo. “It mentions her school, the area she lives in, and talks about the fact that it’s cold outside,” Warner says. “It makes it more real and more engaging.”
The main version of ChatGPT has been able to write a children’s story since it launched last year, but GPTs allow parents (or anyone) to narrow the topic and start with specific prompts, such as a child’s name. This means anyone can generate personalized stories starring their child and their favorite character, meaning no one has to wait for Ludo to drop new content.
That said, the stories produced by AI are nowhere as good as the show itself, and raise legal and ethical concerns. Currently, OpenAI’s GPTs are only available to those with a Plus or Enterprise account. The company has suggested that they may be rolled out to other users, but as custom agents are believed as one of the concerns that led to the company’s problems recent drama at administrative leveland given that researchers have done so identified privacy problems with GPTs that release could be a way out. (OpenAI has yet to respond to requests for comment on this story.)
When Warner built his GPT in early November, he created it with the intention of putting it in the GPT Store that OpenAI had in the works. That never happened. Just five days after advertising Bluey-GPT on Instagram, he received a takedown notice from OpenAI, disabling public sharing of the GPT. Warner knew it would be difficult to use Bluey as the basis for his GPT, so he wasn’t surprised. Trademarks and images are almost always banned, but the laws surrounding AI “written” stories are murky – and Warner’s Bluey bedtime stories are just the beginning.
It’s not easy to explain which laws apply: Warner is based in the UK, OpenAI is in the US and Ludo is in Australia. Fictional characters can be copyrighted in Britain and the US, but it is more complicated in Australia, where simply naming a character may not constitute infringement without incorporating further elements from the work.