Rundell has been using her profile as an author and Oxford academic to argue for caution about AI in schools, and she returned to the subject in her Neverfear launch interview with UPI.

What she said

Her central worry is that AI removes the process of learning. A student who asks a chatbot to research or write for them ends up with finished work but without what doing it would have taught them. She argued that the debate is too often framed around efficiency, when it should be framed around fairness for every child.

She is not against the technology across the board. She is optimistic about what it could do in science, but believes it has not been tested enough to put in front of children. “We risk being careless with children’s futures,” she said.

She added that many young readers she meets are angry rather than grateful about the shortcuts on offer, because they feel the space to engage deeply with texts and ideas is being worn away.

A consistent position

This follows her support in 2024 for the book trade’s open letter to the Prime Minister on the decline in children’s reading for pleasure, where she argued that cutting children off from reading robs a whole generation. She used similar language this month, describing over-reliance on AI as stealing children’s potential and joy.

The AI clause in your copy

There is a physical trace of the AI debate in the books themselves. Later Bloomsbury printings of Impossible Creatures carry a reservation against AI training and text and data mining in the rights paragraph on the copyright page. Early printings do not. It is a publisher rights notice rather than a statement from Rundell, but it is one of the quickest ways to separate an early printing from a later one. The First Edition Guide shows exactly where to look.