When Microsoft design chief Jon Friedman‘s son Judah needed help with a children’s book he wanted to write, Friedman went from Copilot to coauthor, of sorts.
Friedman, a 20-year vet of the tech giant, is a corporate vice president leading design and research across Microsoft, including on its AI products. His skills came in handy on “Max & The Purple Anxiety Monster,” a new book that his 13-year-old son wrote about coping with his anxious feelings.
Friedman created all of the illustrations for the book using Dall-E, the generative AI program from OpenAI that can create images from text prompts. Microsoft has invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI.
“I’m creative, but illustrating an entire book is a daunting task that would scare the crap out of me,” Friedman said about his choice to use AI rather than his own hand to “paint” the numerous watercolor-style illustrations in the book.
The idea for the book was born out of a school writing assignment, in which Judah shared how his family’s move from Seattle to Chicago had him feeling nervous and anxious. Friedman still regularly works from Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., but in Chicago, Judah was facing the prospect of making new friends in a new city.
“Being able to write down how I feel really helps with getting my feelings out of my system,” Judah told GeekWire. He hopes that his story will help other kids who struggle with similar emotions.
In the book, the Purple Anxiety Monster shadows the character, Max, finding joy in the boy’s fears, from the airport to his new bedroom in Chicago. “You’ll never make friends here,” the monster tells Max.
When Max does become friends with his neighbor, Ethan, feelings of being accepted ease his anxiety and make the monster fade into the background.
Judah and his dad planned to print just a few books — one for their house and the other two for his grandparents. They had no intent to publish it until Friedman ran into Greg Shaw, an author who has worked with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on his writings who is also the founder of Clyde Hill Publishing.
Shaw was intrigued by Judah’s story and the use of AI to make it happen.
“I talk about my use of AI all the time,” Friedman said. “It’s just part of my job. What can AI do for people? How does it unlock creativity and push boundaries? And what are the positive stories?”
Beyond Dall-E for the artwork, Friedman and Judah also ran the original classroom story through ChatGPT, to see what that tool would do when prompted to create a children’s book. The process gave Judah some insight into pacing, number of pages and more, and he worked with his mom and therapist to further edit his story.
“The cool part about that was I think AI helped us get started,” Friedman said. “And then a bunch of people jumped in and helped, and that helped Judah to craft the language even more.”
“I don’t think I’d be able to make the book without AI,” said Judah, now a seventh grader.
Despite the use of technology, the book was not a rush job for Friedman by any stretch. He created more than 1,000 illustrations to get down to the 20 or so that are in the book. The main challenge was getting his written prompts in Dall-E to create a consistent look for Max and Ethan.
Age, clothing, hairstyle, skin color, eye color — all of it kept changing with each new illustration. Here are three prompts Friedman wrote, and the resulting illustrations which varied wildly in the AI’s depiction of Max’s age:
- Watercolor painting of a very young Max, in his red hoodie, seated in the airplane, his face illuminated by the gentle light from the window. In the shadows, the Purple Anxiety Monster cautiously peeks out from behind a nearby seat, keeping a close watch on the unsuspecting Max.
- Like the previous one but make Max a little older: Watercolor painting of a very young Max, in his red hoodie, seated in the airplane, his face illuminated by the gentle light from the window. In the shadows, the Purple Anxiety Monster cautiously peeks out from behind a nearby seat, keeping a close watch on the unsuspecting Max.
- That is not quite right, he is way too old now! Please make two versions where Max is around 10 years old: Watercolor painting of a very young Max, in his red hoodie, seated in the airplane, his face illuminated by the gentle light from the window. In the shadows, the Purple Anxiety Monster cautiously peeks out from behind a nearby seat, keeping a close watch on the unsuspecting Max.
When Friedman got things as close as he could with AI, he often would turn to Photoshop to clean up other details in the illustrations himself, such as skin tone.
“As a designer who’s helping design and guide Copilot there’s a lot of really exciting stuff that will come where we’ll be able to handle overarching things in the memory of a conversation and then fine tune things,” he said. “I think over time, you’ll see the tools get way better at this.”
“Max & The Purple Dinosaur” is available through a number of booksellers, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, BookShop.org, and Books-A-Million. It’ll also be available at Judah’s school and neighborhood libraries, and for sale in Chicago and Seattle-area bookstores.
Father and son are also trying to land a book signing somewhere. Judah has been practicing his signature, but his dad probably should, too.
“The book is as much my dad’s as it is mine,” Judah said. “We did a lot of work on it together.”
