In early childhood someone gave me a storybook of African tales. Anansi, Legba, others I have long since forgotten. Every time I hear that the continent is not properly represented in film, and how some European tale needs to be Africanised I'm reminded of how lazy and risk averse Hollywood is. There are a hundred tales that could be told from the continent, genuinely novel and unlike anything you've read before.
Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
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Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#12Very nice but the fonts render as white on white background on my phone which makes it difficult to read. Screenshot: https://ibb.co/29CqpTx
Noted, I will update it to adapt to the phone background color settings
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#13The oral tradition is important because of the stories it passes on. The stories themselves are the thing. How do you square this with this feature you've added where LLMs can generate slop that has no resonance for anyone? It would seem to be at odds with the purpose of the tradition you're building your business around.
Good point, the part of the LLM is to allow a user to insert their own context into the stories. For example, an anansi story, could be adapted to use names of people if that will help the user (example parent) give context (to a child).
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#14In early childhood someone gave me a storybook of African tales. Anansi, Legba, others I have long since forgotten. Every time I hear that the continent is not properly represented in film, and how some European tale needs to be Africanised I'm reminded of how lazy and risk averse Hollywood is. There are a hundred tales that could be told from the continent, genuinely novel and unlike anything you've read before.
Indeed, there are lots of stories that will be incorporated
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#15...and you compensate writers how exactly? Be specific please. Cultural exploitation no matter the nationality or ethnicity or race, in my opinion, is a worthwhile debate. If you're compensating African Writers at a higher rate than the industry that's a selling point. If on the other hand you're hiding a model where you take advantage of African Writers under the guise of promoting their work and career while you profit from them, then that's a valid reason to cheer for your enterprise to fail. Which is it?
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#16Sorry OP, but honestly? This just seems like AI slop, like someone took interesting folk tales and vibe coded generic LLM and TTS around them to make a buck. Nothing ruins the magic of storytelling like the shallow cynicism of lazy capitalism. I'd rather just see a Gutenberg collection of African folk tales than this...
Agreed 100%.
A collection of extra-cultural tales would be very interesting. African, Asian, Pacific. But this AI tale generator is simply diluting the value of the story and insulting to the culture which nurtured such a story.
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#17The contact buttons at the bottom of the web page (email, "global community," and a phone icon) do nothing: they're just span elements in divs. There's a "Twitter" link instead of "X," and it links to "@afritales," which doesn't exist.
As others have pointed out, the web page promises "cultural heritage" and "authentic stories from Africa," but the demo shows AI slop. If you're offering both, then that needs to be made more clear: highlight the authentic stories, and then make clear that users have an option to AI-generate more stories like them. If you're offering only AI-generated stories (and your words "the stories are created to cover…" make that sound possible), you need to be forthright about that, because you'll be called out, with righteous indignation, for selling AI slop as if it were a particular people's cultural legacy.
Also, speaking of "particular people," if you actually want to do something good with this project, make the provenance of each story clear and specific: not just "African," not just "West African," but "a tale from a Wolof griot, collected by Birago Diop." Africa is the largest continent of all, and its cultures are many and diverse with many different storytelling traditions.
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#18Sorry OP, but honestly? This just seems like AI slop, like someone took interesting folk tales and vibe coded generic LLM and TTS around them to make a buck. Nothing ruins the magic of storytelling like the shallow cynicism of lazy capitalism. I'd rather just see a Gutenberg collection of African folk tales than this...
Agreed 100%. A collection of extra-cultural tales would be very interesting. African, Asian, Pacific. But this AI tale generator is simply diluting the value of the story and insulting to the culture which nurtured such a story.
Of possible FYI: https://www.roninfilms.com.au/video/819/40/691.html as part of a larger collection: https://www.roninfilms.com.au/video/819.html
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#19Website says "Professional narration," but then the demo plays AI-generated audio?
Re: Show HN: AfriTales – Discover the Magic of African Storytelling
#20...and you compensate writers how exactly? Be specific please. Cultural exploitation no matter the nationality or ethnicity or race, in my opinion, is a worthwhile debate. If you're compensating African Writers at a higher rate than the industry that's a selling point. If on the other hand you're hiding a model where you take advantage of African Writers under the guise of promoting their work and career while you pr…
Interesting and important point. Currently, I am not working with writers, I am first relying on stories from school, childhood, family and from friends in other countries. When I start to work with writers, they will be fully compensated. The current stories are common to anyone who grew up in the Africa especially rural.