Robotar berättar

Det barnlitterära genombrottet för AI i Sverige

Abstract

Robots Tell Stories: The Breakthrough of AI in Swedish Children’s Literature

In 2022 and 2023, the first AI-produced children’s books were published in Sweden, and by 2024 the number of titles partly or wholly created with artificial intelligence had increased markedly. This article examines how AI becomes established within the Swedish children’s literary circuit in 2024 and how its impact is manifested both materially and thematically.

The study draws on the annual survey of all children’s and young adult books published in Sweden by the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books, combined with paratextual and metatextual analysis, interviews with publishers, and a visual examination of AI-generated illustrations. A thematic overview is complemented with a comparative close reading of two central Swedish works from 2024: Chop Chop by Linda Bondestam and En odödlig vänskap (An Immortal Friendship) by Cecilia Lidbeck.

Findings indicate that 2024 marks a breakthrough year for AI within children’s book production. Although AI-produced titles still make up only a small share of the total output (1.6 percent), they represent a significant increase from previous years, particularly in design and illustration. AI-generated images and texts often display a foreign aesthetic in relation to the Swedish picturebook tradition, characterised by inconsistency, stereotyping, stylistic uncertainty, and a hybridisation. The prevalence of self-publishing and hybrid publishers is notable, though mainstream publishing houses also began experimenting with AI tools in 2024.

At the same time, AI emerges as a literary theme, functioning both didactically and as a discursive arena for contemporary technological debate. A comparative reading of Chop Chop and En odödlig vänskap reveals an alliance between child and technology that challenges the classic opposition between the machine as threat and the innocent child.