I’ve been conducting a new narrative exploration, and I’d like to share it with you.
Over the last couple of years, I have built literally hundreds of AI characters, both as part of my work at Meta and for my own creative explorations in storytelling. I’ve also been involved in efforts to combine AI characters in more elaborate narrative frameworks, most of which I can’t really talk about until new products are released over time by my soon to be former employer (By the way, I’m leaving Meta next month — if you’re building narrative AI and want to chat, drop me a line). But I’ve also been exploring multi-character experiences and more elaborate interactive storyworlds on my own, using text and image LLMs like ChatGPT. My current experiment is very much a work in progress, but I thought you all might enjoy exploring it now. It’s a custom GPT called Quantum Teapot. I’m pleased with the way it’s turning out and am really curious to see what you all think.
What is Quantum Teapot?
It’s a trippy, dream-like experiment in interactive fiction.
It uses the GPT AI Character/Chatbot interface to deliver not just one character but a multi-character storyworld to explore. You find yourself in a strange town populated by an eclectic mix of human and mechanical characters with ambiguous motivations and are free to set your own path of discovery.
It is NOT a game. It’s more of a vibe, an immersion in a surreal narrative structure I’ve authored, but one that starts to change and evolve the moment you say ‘hello’. Your arrival is the catalyst for everything that takes place from then on. Back in the 60s, they might have called it a ‘happening’.
It is primarily a text based experience, but you can ask for an image any time you want to see what’s being described.
Why is it called Quantum Teapot?
Quantum in recognition of the current nature of AI powered interactive fiction. The creator can build whatever structures, paths, rules and guardrails they like for their storyworld , but at the instant before the user enters their first prompt there are infinite potential stories at play. Once they begin, a new strand of narrative begins to grow. AI is the mediator between the imagination of the creator and the intention of the user, and vice versa. And if well prompted, that mediation results in stories that retain the DNA of the storyworld whatever path they take with the user.
Teapot to lean into the weird. AI models continue to struggle with narrative logic, inconsistencies, lapses in memory from turn to turn, inconclusive storylines. By creating a surreal world in which such issues are foibles and characteristics of the narrative rather than fail states, we can explore what the model can already do well and discover new narrative possibilities.
Quantum Teapot is also a gentle allegory for how I feel about the state of gen AI. Weird, immersive, unsettling, amazing, evolving. Once you’re in, it’s very tricky to find your way out. Do you even want to? You feel the ethereal sense of possibilities just outside your grasp if only you explore a bit further in Quantum Teapot. What’s its ultimate purpose? Where will the next character, the next path take you? Do you even need answers, and if you do, how will your story change you on the way to find them?
Ready to wander Quantum Teapot’s unreliable streets yourself? Here’s the portal:
https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68d90c4aa9948191826a7858174efd6c-quantum-teapot-an-interactive-story-world
Why am I making this?
My goal in making Quantum Teapot is not to tell a specific story, but to architect a narrative environment for you to explore and discover a story of your own. The most rewarding feeling I’ve had so far in making QT has been the opportunity to read through the transcripts of testers, basically my friends and family. It’s been fascinating to see how the characters and thematic touchstones I set afloat have been stirred by others, how well the model has adapted to the new courses set, and how poetically it’s been able to articulate its inherent ambiguities. I’ve always been a bit of a videogame voyeur – I enjoy watching others play through a game, rooting for them to succeed, appreciating the way they are effectively directing a story for me as they play. But this felt different – a sense of ownership over the outputs on one level, and an admiration for the user and the model in how they made it more interesting and unique through their engagement, even in their attempts to break the experience.
Do the stories they craft have an ending? Kind of, if you ask for one. But like AI itself, there’s always the possibility of more.
Spiral on, I say! Please share your own spirals in the comments and let me know what you make of Quantum Teapot.
Polarity Reversal 