Jude is working as a “Curator” for the Milwaukee school district, assigned to prompt new stories using an AI called RIGHTR. RIGHTR is designed to create stories that offer moral instruction without offending anyone. On a whim, Jude decides to send a 10th grade teacher a story written by a human author (Le Guin’s “Omelas”), assuming – correctly – that like most people this teacher, Booker, has never read a real book and wouldn’t know what it was. The story is a hit with the kids and Jude keeps passing off human-authored stories as RIGHTR-authored prompts. The ruse works brilliantly, until it doesn’t.

The story is framed as a series of messages between Jude and Booker (as well as other’s in Jude’s orbit) and I felt this was a good format for telling this particular story. The contrast between the distinctive voices of the characters and the impersonal delivery mechanism is effective, and on-theme. The point of the story is to dramatize our present-day anxieties regarding the use of AI, as well as the alarming trend among parents (and increasingly compliant school boards) to censor anything that might “upset” their children. This story works well in fulfilling this objective, and Jude’s misconception about what made his deception successful is heartbreaking. However, in the end the story does not ask anything more of the reader than to agree with its own moral purpose. Ironic, if unintended.