Photo: Screenshot of the art Giggle Academy generated to accompany one of Kyle Dargan’s poems, a use he never authorized. The site has since been taken down.
It’s hard to keep up with all the insidious things some users of artificial intelligence are doing. Here’s what poet Kyle Dargan discovered was happening to his work.
Sam Spratford wrote at Publishers Weekly, “Poet Kyle Dargan makes a habit of running a Google search of his name because, he says, ‘you never know what’s out there.’ Last week, he got a stark reminder of that fact in the form of an AI-generated educational content website called Giggle Academy, which purports to offer ‘free language learning for kids.’
“On the site, Dargan discovered hundreds of webpages containing unauthorized reprints of copyrighted poems, including four of his own. The pages each included cartoonish art, discussion questions, and bio blurbs, all of which appeared to be AI-generated.
“According to its website, Giggle Academy is a nonprofit and was started by cryptocurrency mogul and Binance founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao in 2024. It also claims to have one million users in 182 countries.
“Dargan theorized his poems had been scraped from the Poetry Foundation website, where they were reprinted after being published in anthologies with University of Georgia Press and Northwestern University Press.
“Both publishers got in touch with Giggle Academy earlier this week and requested that Dargan’s work be ‘immediately removed from the website.’ As of Thursday, the four pages containing his poems have been taken down, but hundreds of other poems — all of which appear to have been copied from the Poetry Foundation website — remain. …
“Responding to the takedown request from University of Georgia Press, a Giggle Academy employee by the name of David wrote that the platform aims to abide by fair use principles, adding that they ‘apologize for any oversight in this instance’ and ‘fully respect the rights of authors and publishers.’
“In a mission statement, CZ wrote that the aim of Giggle Academy was to provide education to ‘underprivileged kids in developing countries.’ The site features thousands of ‘lessons’ in English, finance, science, and other areas, with hundreds more going up every day. CZ also noted that he wants to teach children about ‘Negotiations, blockchain, and AI using an ‘addictive’ learning interface. …
“In a statement to PW, Northwestern rights and permissions administrator Courtney Smotherman said that, as a policy, the press ‘does not and would not allow for any of our authors’ work to be used for AI-generated material without first receiving explicit approval to do so from the individual author.’
“In addition to the poems, other sections of Giggle Academy’s website contain illustrated ‘storybooks’ of Disney Movies, and AI-generated versions of popular children’s books including Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. …
“One of Dargan’s poems, ‘States May Sing Their Songs of Praise,’ was originally published by Georgia Press in 2015 in a collection entitled Honest Engine. It is about the history of lynching, according to Dargan, and was labeled for 2–8 year old readers by the site. The accompanying image showed personified U.S. states smiling and doing a sing-along.”
More at PW, here.
