Prompt to Picture: Impact of Generative AI on Creative Agency and Cultural Identity in Children’s Book Illustration

Abstract

Generative AI (Gen AI) is rapidly changing the production of visual literature, including children's book illustrations. The new AI tools offer novel pathways to make the visual development process more efficient, yet it also raises critical questions about the creative ability of children's book illustrators to create authentic and unique visuals in their own styles. Local artists and designers play an important part in constructing and preserving regional identity through their visuals embedded with cultural semiotics. Therefore, relying solely on AI tools during the visual-making process becomes a concern, especially in regions such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the availability of culturally relevant children's visual literature remains limited. To explore this impact, a case study was conducted with fifty-nine undergraduate students at the Department of Art and Design, University of Peshawar. The students were tasked with creating illustrated children's booklets incorporating cultural themes. The purpose was to identify how they use available tools to create the booklets if given creative freedom, including AI in their creative workflow. The resulting projects include stories based on cultural themes alongside generic animal stories. Findings of this study show that a great number (fifty-eighty out of fifty-nine) utilized AI for both text generation and visual content to produce these illustrated stories.  There was a heavy reliance on AI during all stages of design process: story composition, visual creation (illustrations), cover and inner pages design. The resulting artefacts reflect globally homogenized visual styles rather than authentic local representations. This paper argues that an unchecked reliance on Gen AI may reduce an illustrator’s own critical thinking ability required in the complex design process. It may affect their ability to produce illustrations in their unique artistic styles. It also creates an environment of cultural disorientation that should otherwise visually reflect authentic local communities. This study proposes for a balanced Human-AI collaborative model. It insists that AI should serve as a supporting technology rather than a substitute for human creativity. The creative input of illustrators and designers must remain at the heart of visual production. The emerging technologies should amplify rather than dilute local visual narratives.