STEM / STEAM: Using Google BARD Artificial Intelligence to Write a Short Story

December 19, 2023

In 2024, ForCarol.org will “embrace” the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in our college scholarship applications.

The requirements for using AI in their submissions are that the students must tell us: 1. What AI apps they used, 2. how they used them (to write, draw, etc) and what prompts they gave to the AI’s to complete those tasks, 3. where they used the AI in their submission (specific parts the the submission or the whole thing). 4. They are also required to explain, separately, how they think AI will impact them (or chosen field) in the future.

Huge thanks to Inyoung (2014 scholarship winner) and Yash (2018 scholarship winner) for helping formulate the acceptance of AI in the 2024 ForCarol.org scholarship submissions.

Go here to see the Carol Phan Memorial College Scholarship page.

Sooooo, for this example…..

I gave BARD (now Gemini…..geeezzz) the following prompt:

500 word short story. I was writing my scholarship application when I heard a noise outside, and……

Here is what BARD gave me a few seconds later (Note: I did not edit this, I only added the picture later for this blog):

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, paralyzed by the insistent scratching at the back door. My scholarship application, a lifeline to higher education, stared back at me mockingly, an unfinished symphony drowned out by the cacophony outside. Curiosity battling caution, I leaned closer, squinting at the worn screen door. Through the flimsy mesh, I glimpsed flashes of fur and a rhythmic swishing tail. A raccoon? Probably. A raccoon stealing my garbage and demanding my attention with its midnight serenades. I should ignore it, focus on the words pouring out of my heart onto the screen. This scholarship, it was my escape ticket from the peeling paint and leaky roofs of my childhood home, my passport to a future beyond the confines of this dusty town.

But the scratching intensified, morphing into a frantic thumping, like an impatient foot tapping against the door. A guttural whine echoed through the house, goosebumps erupting on my skin. Curiosity, now laced with unease, won the battle. Pushing back my chair, I crept towards the back door, heart hammering against my ribs. Peeking through the screen, I saw it wasn’t a raccoon at all.

He was small, maybe six or seven, his face smudged with dirt and tears. His clothes, a jumble of mismatched hand-me-downs, hung off his thin frame like scarecrow rags. One arm clutched a raggedy teddy bear, the other held a battered tin can, overflowing with… dead butterflies. My breath hitched. My mind, in that split second, conjured images of forgotten graveyards and whispered legends of butterfly spirits trapped in their fragile wings. Was he some kind of… harbinger of death?

But then, as the moonlight glinted off his wide, tear-streaked eyes, I saw the fear, the raw, naked vulnerability. He wasn’t a ghoul, he was just a lost boy, seeking refuge in the night, his only offering a collection of silent, iridescent dreams. Shame burned through my initial fear. What had I thought him to be, some monster out of a bedtime story? I eased open the door a crack, the rusty hinges groaning like a reluctant sigh.

“Hi,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with disuse.

He flinched, his eyes darting from my face to the crack in the door. The can skittered on the porch, butterflies spilling like fallen stars.

“Can I help you?”

His voice, when it came, was barely a whimper. “Lost,” he mumbled, clutching the teddy bear tighter. “Mama… gone.”

My heart ached. In his small, trembling form, I saw a reflection of my own childhood fears, the nights I’d woken with the echo of thunder mistaking it for my mother’s footsteps.

Instead of turning him away, I opened the door wider, a silent welcome against the cold December night. He hesitated, then shuffled inside, his bare feet leaving smudges on the linoleum floor. I led him to the kitchen, placing a warm mug of milk and a plate of cookies on the table. He devoured them with the ravenous hunger of a creature long famished, tears mingling with the crumbs on his cheeks.

While he ate, I cleaned the butterflies – fragile wings still vibrant despite their stillness. Each one, I imagined, carrying a whispered prayer, a child’s longing for home. The scratching at the door had become a distant memory, replaced by the soft snores that emanated from the living room couch where I’d tucked him in with a spare blanket.

My scholarship application waited, mocking, incomplete. But that night, I wrote a different story. Not about my dreams, but about his. About the boy who saw magic in the fluttering ghosts of summer, about the fear that chased him into the darkness, and the kindness that welcomed him back into the light. Maybe, I thought, my future wouldn’t lie in textbooks and lecture halls, but in a different kind of learning, in the whispers of lost butterflies and the courage to chase shadows away.

In the morning, with his teddy bear clutched tight and a can full of fresh butterflies held aloft like a banner of hope, he was gone. I found a note scrawled on the table, the words shaky but filled with a child’s desperate gratitude. “Thank you,” it read, “for believing in butterflies.”

My scholarship application remained unfinished, but the boy’s words were etched onto my heart, a reminder that sometimes, the most important stories are written not with words, but with acts of kindness that bridge the darkness and set lost butterflies free.

Conclusion

NOTE to Judges…..I answered the 4 AI rubric questions below.

I used BARD to write the 500 word essay for this “scholarship submission”, and I used Adobe Firefly to generate the featured image (top) and blog image of the butterflies for this “submission”.

I used the following prompt for the Adobe Firefly featured pictures: A young high school student writing their college scholarship submission on a computer in the library. And for the butterflies: six colorful butterflies flying near a large glass jar.

I did not edit the words or pictures, nor have I checked for “plagarism” (I suppose I should?)

I expect AI to impact how ForCarol.org moves forward with the college scholarship submissions, how exactly we will feel / understand that impact will be determined as we see the submissions.

Hopefully, this blog will give the scholarship applicants a few ideas how to embrace AI in their 2024 Carol Phan Memorial College Scholarship applications due April 5, 2024 before 3:30 PM Pacific.

Drive Safe! Never Forget