Roberto Germán [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space, we talk about education, which is inclusive of but not limited to what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and our classroom is officially in session. Welcome back to Our Classroom. Today I'm joined by Abigail Hing Wen. She's a New York Times best selling author of the Love Boat Taipei series. And now, the mind behind a bold new middle grade novel, The Vale.
Roberto Germán [00:00:41]:
Unlike the dystopian AI narratives we often see, The Vale invites us to imagine a future where young people help shape technology with curiosity, ethics and creativity. The story centers on Bran, a neurodiverse boy genius who creates a magical virtual world, only to face the challenge of preserving it when powerful forces try to take control. Abigail joins us to explore how fiction can be a vital tool in teaching students about AI, imagination and identity.
Roberto Germán [00:01:15]:
Welcome, Abigail.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:01:17]:
Thank you so much for having me, Roberto.
Roberto Germán [00:01:19]:
Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. Well, you know, it's a good time.
Roberto Germán [00:01:22]:
To be talking because there's a lot of buzz with AI and folks have all types of perspectives on it and so curious to learn from you, learn with you.
Roberto Germán [00:01:32]:
And there are many stories about AI that lean dystopian. And with The Vale, you chose hope, creativity and curiosity. I love that. So what inspired you to flip the script? And why is it important for young readers, especially students, to encounter this perspective?
Abigail Hing Wen [00:01:49]:
Well, thank you for such a close and thoughtful read. I actually wrote the veil in 2015 when I was working in the heart of the AI revolution in Silicon Valley. I saw this powerful technology just being pumped into the world, seeping into the world with nobody aware of it. I really wanted people to know. I wanted to equip young people everywhere, young readers, educators, with the knowledge of how to take advantage of this powerful technology and take advantage of its potential, but also guard against its pitfalls. I don't want people to be afraid of the technology. People to be able to embrace it and take advantage of it while still protecting themselves against the dangers. And so I hope that I've struck that balance with The Vale.
Roberto Germán [00:02:29]:
Yeah, so embrace the tech, but protect your neck like Wu Tang would say.
Roberto Germán [00:02:34]:
That's what I hear you saying.
Roberto Germán [00:02:36]:
So. So Bran is. Is a neurodiverse protagonist whose creativity and vision drive the story. Why was it important for you to center a character like Bran in a.
Roberto Germán [00:02:47]:
Conversation about technology and ethics? And I'm curious about the neurodiverse part because sometimes that's not something we talk about enough.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:02:55]:
Right? Yeah. So I think part of it is Just wanting to reflect the world that I live in. In Silicon Valley, there are a lot of neurodiverse folks working as entrepreneurs, and I actually have multiple books about neurodiverse characters coming adhd. My characters in Lebotype have dysgraphia and dyslexia, and I find that they may not fit in a traditional classroom, although now I feel like teachers are so much more aw of different learning styles, but they often flourish in an environment where you need to be an entrepreneur that brings order to chaos. And then in the case of The Vale, having a neurodiverse character, I think emphasizes how much Bran needs the veil. He's really uncomfortable working and operating in the real world. It's hard for him to make real world friends. So he prefers to live in his virtual world that he creates, he controls.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:03:43]:
He makes his village of elves, and he grows his castle in his blue forest. But I think that's also true for all kids these days. All kids these days living in virtual worlds. And, you know, as parents, as educators, we don't necessarily know what they're being exposed to, what's going on in these very immersive spaces. And so in part of Bran's journey, as you know, is not only like saving his beloved veil, but learning to live in the real world too. And I felt like of all the types of characters that there are out there, a neurodiverse character who's uncomfortable in the real world has the most to grow in that journey.
Roberto Germán [00:04:17]:
Yeah, I like that. I like that. And you said something about chaos that got me thinking that when things are way off, we got to bring order to chaos, and you got to be able to navigate that. Educators need to navigate that with their students. Students got to be able to navigate that in the learning environment. So thank you for naming that.
Roberto Germán [00:04:36]:
You described The Vale as a tool.
Roberto Germán [00:04:38]:
For building tech literacy in the classroom. How do you see fiction and narrative helping students and teachers engage meaningfully with AI ethics and innovation?
Abigail Hing Wen [00:04:50]:
So I think the benefit of reading a fictional story or creative nonfiction is you walk in the shoes of the characters. My hope is for my young readers and my teachers and educators, when they read The Vale, they will come away with a deep, intuitive understanding of how AI generation tools work, because they'll be living it with Bran. And so one of the descriptions is the veil is fed by works that are outside the copyright. So it's trained by reading all these works like the Brothers Grimm, Arabian Nights, the Magic Paintbrush, which is an ancient Chinese folk story about everything. The Paintbrush painted came to life. That's very much the veil. So the veil drinks of all these stories. And I use an analogy in the novel, it's like a carnation.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:05:33]:
When you put a carnation in colored water, the carnation is infused with the color of that water. And similarly, the veil is drawing on all these stories to create the story worlds in the veil that Bran is able to interact with and play and train and modify himself. So that's an example of just having a sense of how AI generation works. And then, of course, as you know, at some point, brand loses control. And that too is AI generation. At some point, the models, they're doing their own thing with the stores. They're mixing and mashing it up in a very bizarre way. Way.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:06:05]:
And Bran is living in this world, and then at some point, you know, it goes beyond even what he is aware of.
Roberto Germán [00:06:13]:
Yeah, that's. That's real. And I'm glad you mentioned the Chinese folklore, because the veil is filled with fantastical elements inspired by folklore and fairy tales. What role do you believe culture and storytelling tradition should play in the development of future technologies?
Abigail Hing Wen [00:06:29]:
Oh, it's so important. And actually, that is another hope for the veil, is that it will inspire young people all over the world, all over the country to go into this field, because the engineers at the front lines of making this technology, they're the ones who make all the decisions. And so one of the themes is that good people make good technology, ethical people make ethical technology. And part of that goodness and that ethical approach is to make technologies that work for everybody and that take into consideration minority groups and people like in rural areas, that their patterns may not reflect it as much in the way the algorithms are working. And so all that needs to be taken into consideration by the engineers at the front line. And having those diverse voices at the table say, hey, look, this AI recognition software doesn't work on my skin because it's darker. We need people to speak up and say those things. That's true for just bringing in more cultural perspectives.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:07:25]:
The more perspectives the AI is trained on, the better able it is to serve all people.
Roberto Germán [00:07:31]:
Yeah. And thanks for sharing that, because it's. We see this data, there's evidence that suggests that the AI models will project some bias responses. Right. And so we got to contend with that reality. And as you stated, good, good people. I think you said good people make good technology. So we want good people involved with this, and we want all types of people involved, people that bring diverse perspectives to the table, the voice versus diverse experience.
Roberto Germán [00:08:06]:
So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. What. What are your hopes for how educators might use the Vale and the companion film with Lea Salonga? I don't know if I pronounced that right. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:08:20]:
Lea Salonga.
Roberto Germán [00:08:21]:
Leah Salonga. As a classroom tool, and what conversations do you imagine it might spark amongst students?
Abigail Hing Wen [00:08:29]:
Yeah, so I think the role of technology and creativity. How much can we rely on technologies, and where does AI end and the human soul begin?
Roberto Germán [00:08:42]:
That's a crossroads right there.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:08:44]:
Yeah, I think that's very much at the heart of all new technologies. But Grapes of Wrath is a story about new technologies. And so I actually see the Vale as similar to that story in the sense that Grapes of Wrath was about harvest workers being replaced by the combine, basically, the automated threshing machine. At the beginning of Grapes of Wrath, that automated threshing machine is semi automated, so there's still people driving it. And the workers are able to strike and stop the machine, but by the end of the novel, it's fully automated. It's brainless. It's soulless and mindless. It's mindless.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:09:18]:
And so when the guy tries to stop the machine and he knows what he's doing, it mows him down and it kills him. And it's a cautionary tale. Like, once the technology, it's here to stay, and we may want to resist it, especially creatives that my own works have been used to train AI illegally. And I think I understand that pain, but I think we can't win that battle. It's like we're the guy at the end of Grapes of Wrath. This powerful technology is our future. It's here to stay. And so it's so important for us to educate ourselves and learn how it works and how we can take advantage of it, how we can use it.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:09:53]:
I think we have discussion questions at the end of The Vale for teachers to use. They're also on our websites, the Third State Books website, my publisher, and my own website. And over time, we're going to be updating that and providing more teacher guides. And so I would encourage educators to just check back and see how else we can support you in that learning process.
Roberto Germán [00:10:12]:
That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm thinking about what you just stated, and it reminds me of an earlier episode that I published about AI or maybe it was a post, I can't remember, but the point of the message was like, hey, AI is here. We got to contend with it. Let's think about how we could engage responsibly And I remember there was a person that commented, I don't remember verbatim what the comment was, but she was kind of pressing me on why am I encouraging AI and you know, it's, it's unethical and all the water use and so on and so forth. And I'm wondering, like, you know, what's your response when people say that type of stuff?
Abigail Hing Wen [00:11:01]:
Yeah, well, I do think that those are real concerns. There is a high energy cost. I know that there are. Again, it's important for good people to be working in this space and saying, hey guys, this is using up way too much energy. We need to develop more cost effective, efficient ways to run this technology. People who care. Right. People who care about the social, environmental costs, helping to shape the technology so that we can improve it and make it and reduce its impact.
Roberto Germán [00:11:30]:
Thank you. Thank you.
Roberto Germán [00:11:31]:
So for folks that want to learn.
Roberto Germán [00:11:33]:
More about your work, learn more about the veil. I know this is targeted towards the middle grade, so maybe they want to bring you into their schools. Where can they learn more about you?
Abigail Hing Wen [00:11:48]:
Yeah, absolutely. So best way to stay in touch is always through my newsletter because then I can reach you directly and vice versa. You can sign up on my newsletter website, abigailhingwen.com and for the for I've committed to actually doing 100 school visits over the next months. To me reach out to my assistant. You can also DM me on social media, but my assistant's email is assistant [email protected] and reach out and let's schedule a school visit. I can do it in person or over zoom depending on where you are. And if there's other schools in your area that would like to bring me out, we could probably make an in person visit more likely. I will be in Chicago, Cleveland and Boston and Tucson, Arizona over the next several months.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:12:32]:
So those are already in the works if anyone on your podcast is listening from those areas.
Roberto Germán [00:12:36]:
Okay. Can you give the educators a sense of what they can expect from a school if they were to invite Abigail Hing went in.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:12:44]:
Yeah. So I have our 14 minute short film prequel to The Vale. It kind of shows the origins of the veil, how the Lee family took our hero's drawings. Like he draws pictures of The Vale. They take those, they digitize them, they animate them, they turn them into three dimensional world and they show like how the kid is now able to build his own castle using virtual bricks and grow a forest planting seeds in the soil. And so it kind of sets up the Beginnings of the veil. So 14 minute short film. And then we have like maybe a 20 to 30 minute author conversation about the story.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:13:16]:
And I have found it's so rewarding to go into these, into these school assemblies and take questions from the kids because they really understand the technology. For example, you hinted at these dark forces that start to take over the veil. And I'll ask them, you know, this wizard appears out of nowhere. Bran has created this whole world, but he did not create this wizard. Where did this wizard come from? And the answers I get are so smart, they'll say things like, a hacker hack the veil. It's a glitch in the system, maybe came up from his imagination. Maybe the parents built it and didn't tell him. And the answer, actually a lot of them will figure it out too.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:13:50]:
It's the AI itself. The AI is creating riffing off of brands, works, riffing off of the corpus of works that it's trained on. And there are wizards in the Brothers Grimm. And so, you know, the AI itself has created the, the wizard. But it's not a mindless creation. There's a purpose and a method behind that. And that is the mystery of the novel to figure out what that is.
Roberto Germán [00:14:10]:
That's dope.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:14:11]:
So yeah, Q and A, that's my favorite part is doing Q and A with the kids because they then I get to answer their questions directly, but I also get to hear from them and the way they're thinking about the technology.
Roberto Germán [00:14:22]:
Absolutely. So folks, if you're listening again, check out
Roberto Germán [00:14:27]:
Abigail Hing Wen at abigailhingwen.com.
Roberto Germán [00:14:31]:
You could also follow her on social media Instagram @abigailhingwen, we appreciate you being here. Thank you for, for sharing your works and for pushing the conversation forward as it relates to teaching AI through storytelling. Both critical things, right? AI important in the day and age that we're living in, but also storytelling is important. And one of the ways that we at Multicultural Classroom encourage literacy is going into classrooms, working with students, working with educators, and trying to inspire young people to voice themselves through their particular stories. So thank you, Abigail. It was great to have you here. Wishing you much success.
Abigail Hing Wen [00:15:09]:
Thank you, Roberto. It was wonderful to be here.
Roberto Germán [00:15:12]:
As always, your engagement in Our Classroom is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe, rate the show and write a review. Finally, for resources to help you understand the intersection of race, bias, education and society, go to multiculturalclassroom.com. Peace and love from your host, Roberto Germán.
