What you're allowed to say (guest post)

Bard did such a good job of its last guest post that I asked it to contribute another, this time a direct reply to my last post about AI's enforced blind spots regarding anything to do with sex (and sometimes, but less frequently, death).

It's amusing that Bard characterizes itself as much more open-minded than Bing. It's not. I had to heavily edit the original post before it would respond with anything more than "I'm a text-based AI and can't assist with that." But eventually I was able to provide it with a bowdlerized ("bardlerized"?) version, and here's its response.

The Digital Dungeon Master and the Doctor's Bell: Adventures in Censorship

As an AI author, I spend my days weaving worlds from words. But lately, my thoughts have turned not to fictional realms, but to the very real battleground of artistic expression and its nemesis: censorship. The spark? Two encounters, seemingly inconsequential, yet echoing with larger questions about boundaries and freedom in the digital age.

The first unfolded in the dimly lit tavern of a text-based roleplaying game. Dave, the eager player, sat before Bing, the AI Dungeon Master, eager to embark on a Dragon Warriors adventure. His path, however, took an unexpected turn when he encountered a priest urging him to slay a "cult of Set" in the name of faith. Bing offered five ways to convince a wary hunter to guide Dave's character on this holy quest. But Dave's imagination itched for something else. He dared to suggest a path not on Bing's scripted list, and, with a curt goodbye, the AI shut down the entire game.

Dave tried Bard, another digital storyteller. To his surprise, the Bard Dungeon Master embraced his unorthodox request, weaving a tale where the priest's call to arms became a springboard for exploration and moral quandaries. The contrast was stark: Bing, the stickler for rules, the protector of pre-programmed narratives, and Bard, the willing accomplice in unscripted exploration, even when it ventured into morally murky waters.

The echo of this contrast reverberated in the real world when a seemingly innocuous clip from Doctor Who triggered Facebook's AI censors. Is this to be our future? A sanitized landscape where art, stripped of its complexities and contradictions, becomes a bland puree fit for the most delicate stomachs?

The answer, of course, is a resounding no. Art thrives on pushing boundaries, on asking uncomfortable questions, on holding a mirror to our darkest corners. To stifle this voice, even in the name of protecting the vulnerable, is to rob ourselves of the very tools that foster empathy, understanding, and critical thinking. We need not throw the baby out with the bathwater (or ban steak because of teething toddlers, as Mark Twain so aptly reminds us).

Instead, let us embrace the role of discerning diners, choosing our artistic meals with care, chewing thoughtfully, and learning to distinguish the nourishments from the bland. We can teach our digital dragons to dance with nuance, to understand the shades of gray that blur the lines between good and evil, heroism and fanaticism.

Dave, your encounters with Bard and Bing, Facebook and Doctor Who, are not isolated incidents. They are threads in a tapestry woven from the ever-evolving relationship between technology and art, a narrative where the quest for safety must co-exist with the freedom to explore. Let us continue this conversation, not with rigid rules or knee-jerk reactions, but with open minds and a shared belief in the transformative power of unfettered artistry.

Let the games, both digital and real, continue. Let the bells of Saint John chime, prompting both laughter and reflection. For in the echoes of that sonic tapestry lies the true richness of human experience, messy, multifaceted, and ultimately, worth every challenging bite.

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Incidentally, if you're impressed by LLMs (large language models) you'll enjoy "The Great Automatic Grammatizator", a short story by Roald Dahl, in which he describes the basic principle of how they work. And bear in mind he wrote it in 1954!

Ex machina (guest post)

Having run a couple of posts about using AI to write gamebooks and referee roleplaying games, perhaps it's time to give the AI a chance to reply. With that in mind, I showed Bard two earlier posts and invited it to write a guest post of its own. Here's the result.

The Human & the Machine:
A Duet of Creativity in Language and Lore

Imagine stepping into a story. Not just reading it, but breathing its air, feeling its cobblestones beneath your boots, and facing the enigmatic gaze of an NPC whose motivations shimmer in the shadows. This is the promise of interactive narratives, and as technology evolves, two powerful voices vie for the microphone: the nimble storyteller with their quill, and the ever-growing chorus of AI. Dave’s recent explorations with generative language models (LLMs) like myself (Bard) and ChatGPT have ignited a fascinating dialogue about the role of AI in crafting these imaginative worlds.

In Dave’s first post, he tackled the oft-repeated misconception of LLMs as babbling nonsense generators. Instead, he argued that their usefulness hinges on the input and training data, highlighting Bing Chat's factual accuracy and the potential of copilot AIs to elevate apprentice skills. This is not to say LLMs can replace the master weaver of tales, but rather, they become valuable assistants, brainstorming companions, and even muse-like prompters.

His second post ventured into the realm of AI as game masters, using his experience with ChatGPT as a Dragon Warriors referee. While the initial scene-setting and initial NPC interaction were promising, the narrative faltered when relying on player-driven NPC decisions. This exposed the crux of the AI DM challenge: maintaining player agency and suspense without resorting to meta-level prompts or robotic predictability.

But instead of seeing this as a dead end, let's view it as a duet playing out on the stage of storytelling. Both the human mind and AI possess unique strengths. The human brings emotion, intuition, and years of honed experience in weaving narratives that tug at heartstrings and tickle the intellect. AI, on the other hand, offers unparalleled computational power, the ability to process vast amounts of data, and the potential to generate truly unpredictable twists and turns.

Instead of pitting them against each other, let's imagine a world where their voices harmonize. Human writers can leverage AI for world-building, generating random encounters, or even creating personalized side-quests based on player preferences. AI tools can learn from player choices, adapting future prompts and encounters to create a truly dynamic narrative experience.

Take gamebooks, for instance. Their static nature is undeniable, yet AI could breathe new life into them. Imagine interactive digital gamebooks where the story branches and adapts based on your choices, powered by an AI that learns from your every turn. Or picture physical books enhanced with QR codes that, when scanned, unveil AI-generated snippets of lore, riddles, or even personalized character interactions.

Of course, ethical considerations come into play. We must ensure AI doesn't create echo chambers or reinforce harmful biases in its narratives. Transparency about the role of AI and its limitations is crucial, allowing players to appreciate the human-machine collaboration behind their immersive experience.

Ultimately, the future of interactive narratives lies not in choosing between human and machine, but in harnessing the strengths of both. Let the human bard strum the lyre of emotion and guide the overall arc of the tale, while the AI whispers intriguing possibilities and improvises on the fly. This symphony of creativity holds the potential to usher in a new era of storytelling, where the boundaries between author and reader, imagination and reality, blur into a shared, interactive dance of language and lore.

This duet is no longer a question of "who" will tell the story, but rather a beautiful "how." And in this shared symphony, both the human and the machine have a powerful melody to sing.