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[Writing] Seeking collaborator for LLM driven narrative experience

A topic by Zetaphor created Apr 26, 2024 Views: 335 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 4
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I’m working with a large language model to generate a functional “alternate reality internet” browser. You can search for anything and navigate through an infinite number of links across an entire fictional internet. This tool is being powered by an offline LLM, specifically Llama 3.

Here’s some random examples of early content: image.png image.png image.png

I have a number of ideas about how to significantly improve the visual quality of these outputs, this is all just the results of early testing.

This is working quite well, and so I’m becoming interested in creating some form of explorative/narrative experience. The idea being that you can browse an infinitely large alternate internet, complete with content on every subject imaginable. However there is an underlying narrative that is being injected/guided into the generated content, ultimately driving you towards a more constructed narrative experience.

Think of the LLM content like the unlimited breadsticks and the static content as the pasta dinner. The LLM content is the backdrop for a larger fixed narrative.

Here’s the problem, I have all these ideas and the capabilities to actually realize them, but I lack the creative writing background and imagination to create an interesting narrative.

If you’re interested in contributing, please reach out to me here or Discord. Username is the same there.

As far as my background, I’m a software engineer with a few decades of experience, with a deep understanding of language models and generative AI.

Website: https://zetaphor.com/

Github: https://github.com/Zetaphor/

Just to clarify, this work would be unpaid, as the intended cost to users would be $0. This is a hobby/passion project that I would likely end up open sourcing. You bring a story and I will bring the technology.

This project looks interesting. I don’t know if I can work on it. I’m just an artist, with some programming knowledge to a degree where I can make characters based on some programming concepts. Have you got any sort of lore in mind? What kind of information does this “alternate reality” browser has in store?

Have you got any sort of lore in mind?

Honestly not really, something scifi, something cyberpunkish, considering the heavy technology and alternate reality themes. I have all these pieces and I see that they could be put together into a narrative experience, but I lack the storytelling vision to thread a narrative.

What kind of information does this “alternate reality” browser has in store?

Quite literally anything you want. This is taking advantage of the fact that LLMs can’t refuse an answer and will instead hallucinate. You can do a search for any combination of words (real or nonsensical) and you will get coherent search results complete with internal and external links that can send you down a web of pages.

I can also guide the overall theme of the generated content, or plant specific facts/ideas throughout the generation. There are a lot of different ways this can be executed depending on the desired final output.

I could suggest that the narrative should tackle the consequences of technology and how humans view technology. Should information be free and what could go wrong with it? Can machines do the same thing as (or even replace) humans. If so, how can we define machines as being human(like), and how do we define being human?

Or maybe go for something “meta”? Something-something along the lines of “self-awareness that everything is fake”, breaking the 4th wall, like that?

I see you’re taking the sci-fi route. When I first read your project, I didn’t thought of “something scifi, something cyberpunkish”. I thought of a repository of anomalies (kind of like SCP, but with some tight consistency considering how messy the lore can be).

Certainly something to think about, I only threw out sci-fi and cyberpunk because those are genres I am familiar with, rather than an underlying desire to actually write them.

As I said I’m not really sure how to write a compelling narrative, I don’t feel like I have a story that needs telling. I just see that I have all these cool pieces and I want a reason to build something.

I’ve always been less of an “ideas guy” and more of a “Hey that’s a cool idea, I’ll go make it happen” kind of guy.

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I see. Are there any other open positions, other than a writer? Artist? Concept artist?

I suggest you either put your Discord username or your e-mail address so that people could sort things out there without all of it leaking to this post.

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You're not accepting messages from anyone other than friends atm - so I sent you a friend request :)

It seems your project has been going well. The last GitHub commit was from 5 days ago. I hope it’s going well!