itch.io

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.

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’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:

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.