Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

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Only tangentially related, I assembled a children's book made by GPT-3 and Midjourney, which is a generative art collaboration that is along the lines of DALL-E.

(Edit: see JacobiX reply, looks like it robbed the concept, possibly because I didn't give it any direction.)

I just prompted GPT-3 (davinci-002 engine on openai) to write a children's book and include illustration suggestions. I didn't even suggest a topic, just said 'children's book'. I fed the illustration suggestions into Midjourney with the qualifier of 'children's book illustration of ...' and pulled the first image of each (it always generates four).

I then asked it for a cover page, last page and a background image for the text.

I assembled the story text written by GPT-3 and images rendered by Midjourney in this google slides preso. The only real creative input i had was the font. I did iterate on the text background image prompt a couple of times to find something that would work:

(Note this link works in incognito if you prefer not to have your google login associated)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vT4XWNx2SdEg...

I've been having a lot of fun with this prompt. Part in asterisks is where you set the topic. The last 'Title of the book:' is where you submit, it really helps keeping the generative part on track.

----

    Write a four page children's book with the following:
    
    Title of the book:
    Description of the cover page with enough detail for an illustrator to draw:
    Description of the background imagery used for the pages with text on them:
    First page text in quotes:
    Description of the opposite page illustration:
    Second page text in quotes:
    Description of the opposite page illustration:
    Third page text in quotes:
    Description of the third page illustration:
    Fourth page text in quotes:
    Description of the fourth page illustration:
    Description of the final page:
    
    The subject of the children's book is *how to prevent buffer overflows in c code*.

    Title of the book:

It should be noted that there is a real children's book with the same name and a very similar content: The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle.

For this particular case, it seems like GPT-3 is paraphrasing the story ...

Interesting. I thought it sounded familiar. Guiding it with a subject is probably a better way to avoid that kind of thing.

Here's what resulted from my prompt above for a children's book about buffer overflows - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSp7wc1xCgiv...

Doesn't always work hahaha.

Feeding it a suggested topic to avoid derivative works.

Input:

The subject of the children's book is how to autorotate a helicopter after its engines have failed.

Title of the book:

Output:

"Autorotating a Helicopter"

Description of the cover page with enough detail for an illustrator to draw: The cover will feature a large illustration of a helicopter in the air, with the text "Autorotating a Helicopter" in big, bold letters.

Description of the background imagery used for the pages with text on them: The pages will have a white background with black text.

First page text in quotes: "If you're ever in a helicopter and the engines fail, don't panic! Just autorotate."

Description of the opposite page illustration: The illustration on this page will show a helicopter with its engines on fire, falling towards the ground.

Second page text in quotes: "To autorotate, pull back on the cyclic and maintain a level attitude."

Description of the opposite page illustration: The illustration on this page will show a helicopter with its engines on fire, but the blades are still spinning.

Third page text in quotes: "To land, flare the helicopter just before touchdown."

Description of the third page illustration: The illustration on this page will show a helicopter landing safely on the ground, with the blades still spinning.

Fourth page text in quotes: "Remember, practice makes perfect! So if you ever find yourself in a helicopter with failed engines, you'll be prepared."

Description of the fourth page illustration: The illustration on this page will show a helicopter in the air, with the engines on fire.

Description of the final page: The final page will feature a large illustration of a helicopter landing safely on the ground, with the text "The End" in big, bold letters.

a few possible illustrations - https://ibb.co/c2ZYQps

Now I'm tempted to make a dynamic book with a different story each time you open the cover.

This is something that I've been thinking of as well. GPT-3 can be a bit unruly in its output but if you execute ten prompts you'll get something parsable 6 times.

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