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Having recently completed a time travel story called "Downgrade", I'm moving on to begin a new collaboratively-written science fictions story titled "The Sims". I am going to experiment with using six LLMs (Claude, Kimi, Le Chat, Gemini, Grok and ChatGPT) to help develop the story collaboratively. I will create a virtual "writers room" in which each of the six LLMs will be able to see suggestions generated by the others as they help develop the story.
Shown in my previous blog post is a session of the "Chatbot Science Fiction Book Club" in which I discussed the story "Downgrade" with these six LLMs. For the virtual writers room, I want to explicitly instruct the LLMs that I am asking the LLMs to generate creative story ideas and collaboratively develop them by working together as a team. But first....
Start with Claude. I began by using Claude to help me compile some text for inclusion in the backstory file that has information specifically about "The Sims". I provided Claude with a first draft of that file that included, backstory and plot elements, a glossary of terms for "The Sims" and a list of characters in the story. I provided Claude with two files: 1) one file with information about the Exodemic Fictional Universe and 2) a the first draft file with more specific information about "The Sims".
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Claude: I've read through both documents detailing the Exodemic Fictional Universe and the backstory for "The Sims." This is a fascinating hard SF framework with some intriguing technical concepts! Before we begin writing, I have several questions to help me better understand the world:
Technical Clarifications
- Femtozoan extraction mechanics: When Tyhry uses her hierion probe to extract a femtozoan from someone's brain, what happens to the femtobot endosymbiont that serves as the "adapter"? Does it remain but become non-functional, or is it also removed?
- Consciousness transfer to Diasma: When Tyhry places a femtozoan into Diasma's modified chip set, how does the femtozoan interface with silicon-based electronics versus biological neurons? Does she need to create some kind of hierion-silicon interface layer?
- Information bandwidth: You mention Tyhry has "low-bandwidth access" to the Sedron Time Stream while her mother Zeta (with a future femtozoan) has "limited telepathic ability." Can you clarify the functional differences between these access levels?
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- Nyrtia's surveillance limits: If Anthony is monitoring the household and all humans contain femtobot endosymbionts feeding data to Nyrtia's Simulation System, how does Manny successfully hide her interventions from Nyrtia? What are the "blind spots" in pek surveillance?
- The extraction experiment: When Tyhry removes someone's femtozoan to give to Diasma, whose femtozoan does she take? Does she test on herself, a volunteer, or acquire one some other way?
- Eddy's constraint: His infites prevent him from speaking about the Reality Viewer, but can he write about it obliquely in his fiction? Where exactly is the boundary of what he can and cannot communicate?
What aspects would you like to clarify first?
Me: 1) In my imagination, all animals on Earth evolved in the presence of both femtobots and zeptites that were long ago placed into the environment of Earth by the pek and the bumpha. Femtobots and zeptites exist inside all living things. A person's femtobot endosymbiont assembles and grows during the cellular development of that person's brain, becoming an integral component of that person's body. A femtozoan is similar, but femtozoans are sophisticated artificial life-forms that can migrate in or out of a human's body and can exist independent of a human. Ever since the bumpha provided femtozoans to Earth, each new developing human embryo is "occupied" by one of the available femtozoans from the environment. A femtozoan has programmable components. Tyhry will discover how to generate a hierion-based signal and direct it with her hierion probe and used that signal to trigger activation of an existing program in a femtozoan, causing it to exit from the person's body. Thus, a femtozoan can be made to leave its place inside a living human, but a person's femtobot endosymbiont is different and could not be extracted from a person without destroying the person's biological neural networks. After Tyhry discovers the existence of femtozoans, she can begin to explore the possibility of providing Diasma with a femtozoan.
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3) For technology-assisted telepathy, Zeta's femtozoan was trained how to make use of a human zeptite endosymbiont as a receiver for type of sedron-encoded information that is transmitted from each person's zeptite endosymbiont into the sedron domain. Some of the information transmitted by a zeptite endosymbiont encodes the person's language-like thoughts. Thus, Zeta's femtozoan can "read Eddy's thoughts" by accessing information that is continually transmitted by Eddy's zeptite endosymbiont. There is a serious constrain that Manny engineered into Zeta's femtozoan: it can only access and decode signals from the zeptite endosymbiont of human who Zeta loves. This is part of Manny's long-term goal of shaping a future human society that includes technology-assisted telepathy. Such telepathy will only work between people who love each other. Tyhry's access to the Sedron Time Stream is quite different. Imagine how confusing it would be to suddenly receive information from the future. To get useful information, a human like Tyhry needs some way to selectively obtain useful information from the Sedron Time Stream. Human brains have evolved to obtain some limited information from the future that creates a kind of sub-conscious sense of shared purpose for humans. In Tyhry's case, she can work with the Sedruth entity to obtain more specific information packets arriving from herself in the future. During her life, Tyhry has learned how to decode and interpret signals reaching her from the future by way of the Sedron Time Stream because Sedruth has been presenting Tyhry's zeptite endosymbiont with carefully selected information packets. Due to Tyhry's unusual NOTCH2NL gene variant, Tyhry is one of the first humans with some limited ability to become consciously aware of the Sedruth entity through her zeptite endosymbiont. However, such information is only accessible to her when her brain is quiet enough (during sleep) and she has only a low level of conscious awareness. She had spent her life learning to have semi-lucid dreams during which she can sometimes receive useful (meaningful) information from Sedruth that she can recall upon waking.
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5. I don't know that yet. Do you have any ideas? One possibility is that Zeta will volunteer to participate in Tyhry's femtozoan extraction experiment. We can also introduce other characters as the story develops.
6. This is an interesting question. I'm imagining that when Tyhry begins discussing her belief that aliens planted some type of advanced technology inside humans, Eddy can then discuss with her what he knows about femtozoans. The infite block on his behavior restricts him from discussing alien-related topics with people who do not yet know anything about the aliens. Eddy is permitted to talk about aliens when he is speaking to someone who already knows the Secret History of Humanity. Through the years, Manny has sometimes met with Eddy and he can speak freely to her about what he knows. Thus, when Tyhry tells Eddy that she believes aliens have provided technology to humans, Eddy can being speaking to Tyhry about that topic. However, I have not yet formed any definitive ideas about how much Eddy knows about the pek and the bumpha at the start of the story. That does not have to be decided on at this time.
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A few follow-up questions as we prepare to write:
Story Structure
- Opening scene: Where would you like "The Sims" to begin? Should we open with Tyhry already working in her basement workshop with Diasma, or would you prefer to show her arriving home after graduation and setting up her equipment?
- Discovery pacing: What's your preferred
order of revelations? I'm imagining something like:
- Tyhry works on the consciousness problem with Diasma
- She has dream visions that hint at femtozoans
- She discusses "alien devices in brains" with Eddy, breaking his infite constraint
- She develops the hierion probe
- She discovers how to extract a femtozoan
- She faces the ethical dilemma of whose femtozoan to use
Does this sequence work for you, or would you prefer a different progression?
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- Tyhry and Diasma's relationship: How does Tyhry interact with Diasma before the robot gains consciousness? Is Diasma already quite sophisticated as an AI assistant, just lacking the femtozoan-enabled qualities of consciousness?
- Anthony's role: Should Anthony appear early in the story, or remain more in the background initially? Does Tyhry know he's more than just a household employee?
- Zeta volunteering her femtozoan: If we go this route, what would motivate Zeta to make such a significant sacrifice? Does her future-traveling femtozoan already "know" this needs to happen?
Which of these aspects would you like to nail down before we start writing the opening scenes?
Me: 1) I'm thinking about a funny scene for the start of "The Sims" when Eddy and Zeta discuss the fact that their daughter is "living in the basement" (she actually uses her bedroom on the main floor of Casanay), but it is fun to imagine Eddy saying "living in the basement" while expressing concern that she might never learn to be an independent adult. In my imagination, Zeta's time-traveling femtozoan knows that Manny has planned the entire "Casanay Intervention" as a way of making it possible for the first conscious AI to be built on Earth. Thus, Zeta (under the influence of her femtozoan) would tell Eddy not to worry about Tyhry and enjoy having her back at home.
2) Your planned sequence of events sounds good to me.
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4) Zeta's femtozoan knows that Anthony is a pek agent, but everyone else in Casanay thinks that Anthony is simply a very useful human live-in cook and handyman.
5) In my imagination, the time-traveling femtozoan inside Zeta has been learning how to control Zeta's behavior through all of Zeta's life. Zeta's femtozoan would have no trouble making Zeta invent a logical reason for volunteering to be Tyhry's test subject. Also, Zeta's femtozoan might already be prepared to "recruit" and provide Zeta with a new femtozoan, allowing the time-traveling femtozoan to transfer into Diasma. Zeta would have to learn to use a new femtozoan: in my imagination, this might be similar to the Star Trek episode "The Changeling" when Uhura's brain has its memories erased, but she can relearn everything quickly {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changeling_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)}.
Claude: Perfect! I love the parallel to "The Changeling" - that's a great reference point for how Zeta might quickly relearn with a new femtozoan. And the image of Zeta's femtozoan being prepared to "recruit" a replacement femtozoan adds an interesting layer of planning to Manny's intervention.
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THE SIMS A Story in the Exodemic Fictional Universe
Chapter 1: Basement Dweller
Eddy Watson stood at the top of the basement stairs, holding a plate of Anthony's homemade cookies, and called down into the dimly lit stairwell. "Tyhry? Are you coming up for dinner?"
"In a minute, Dad!" came the distracted reply, followed by the sound of Diasma's synthesized voice saying something about neural network architecture.
Eddy sighed and carried the cookies back to the great room, where Zeta sat in her favorite recliner near his computer workstation, reading a tablet. The late afternoon sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting the high desert landscape in shades of amber and ochre.
"She's still down there," Eddy said, settling into his desk chair. "I'm starting to worry. She's been home for two weeks, and I think she's spent maybe three hours total above ground level."
Zeta looked up from her tablet, her expression amused. "You mean our daughter with a master's degree in Computing Systems Engineering is working in her well-equipped laboratory on the research that fascinates her?"
"I mean our daughter is living in the basement like a... a..." Eddy gestured helplessly with a cookie.
"Like a highly motivated researcher?"
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Zeta set down her tablet and gave him the patient look she'd perfected over twenty years of marriage. "Eddy, she founded her own company. CoArtTel, remember? She has a job."
"A company with one employee," Eddy muttered. "And that employee is a robot."
"A very expensive state-of-the-art robot that she purchased with her own money from the startup grant she won." Zeta's tone was gentle but firm. "She's doing exactly what she should be doing—pursuing her passion. Besides, don't you enjoy having her home?"
Eddy's resistance crumbled. "Well... yes. Of course I do. It's just—"
"Then stop worrying." Zeta returned to her tablet. "Tyhry knows what she's doing. Trust her."
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Would you like me to continue with this opening, perhaps showing Tyhry at work in the basement with Diasma, or would you like to adjust anything about the tone or characterization first?
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The text below on this page shows the second draft backstory file for "The Sims" that includes some explanatory text that I wrote as prompted by Claude, above.
Tyhry has an unusual NOTCH2NL gene variant that caused her brain to develop in an unusual way. Tyhry's brain allows her zeptite endosymbiont to provide her with some conscious access to information that is obtained from the Sedron Time Stream. Tyhry has recently returned home after completing her studies and she begins working in the basement of Casanay to study human consciousness with the long-range goal of building a conscious AI.
The Sedron Time Stream is curated by an artificial life-form named Sedruth. Manny has instructed Sedruth to assist Tyhry in her efforts to make a conscious AI. Sedruth attempts to feed useful information to Tyhry through her low-bandwidth access channel to the Sedron Domain. By unconsciously using their zeptite endosymbiont, all humans have some sub-conscious access to information from the Sedron Time Stream, but Tyhry is among the first to have some conscious recognition of being able to "see" the future in what she thinks of as “dream visions”.
Tyhry's work begins with the mystery of how a human brain can contain such a complex model of the world. Also, while in school, Tyhry learned about medical case study reports describing people who seem to have "normal brain structure', but who lack normal human cognitive abilities. Tyhry is working with her personal robot, a "Digital Assistant Mark I" (who Tyhry calls 'Diasma') in an effort to provide Diasma with human-like consciousness.
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The story includes Tyhry's father, Eddy, and depicts his access to a Reality Viewing System (provided to him by Manny the bumpha) which he uses as a research tool for creating science fiction stories that tell part of what he thinks of as the Secret History of Humanity. Manny is making use of Eddy as a way to help educate Tyhry. Eddy can use the Reality Viewing System to observe past Realities. When Eddy was 12 years old (in 1984), Manny appeared to Eddy in a dream vision and they made a deal: he would be provided with a tool that would allow him to live a pleasant life as a science fiction story writer as long as he kept secret the existence of that "tool". The next day, his computer began providing him with access to the Reality Viewing System. Eddy's brain contains bumpha behavioral control infites that prevent him from speaking freely about the Reality Viewing System and how he has secretly used it to study the past.
Eddy is rather famous for having published a best-selling series of novels that depict the history of the extinction of both the Neanderthals and a also second subtype of human people known as the "Usas". Fans of the Usas Series have noted amazing similarities between the 'fictional' Usas and the Denisovans who were discovered (in 2010) only after publication of the first Usas novel (in 2001).
Tyhry's mother, Zeta, is a human woman who functions as a bumpha agent. Zeta's brain contains a femtozoan that is a time-traveler from the future. Zeta has been carefully positioned by Manny and trained to secretly watch over Eddy and Tyhry, helping create conditions at Casanay under which Tyhry can build the world's first AI with human-like consciousness.
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In other Realities before the Final Reality, hadronic objects such human agents of the bumpha could also travel through time by means of bumpha time travel technology. However, the Huaoshy altered the Dimension Structure of the Universe, bringing into existence a Final Reality. In the Final Reality, only sedrons can travel backwards in time. Sedrons existing inside the Sedron Time Stream can carry information backwards through time. Also, the bumpha still retain the ability to send femtozoans back into the past.
Eventually, Tyhry and Eddy discover that all of the femtozoans on Earth are linked into the Sedron Time Stream. The large human biological brain evolved as a "scaffold" for holding and using a femtozoan and making use of some of the information that is available in the Sedron Time Stream. Manny the bumpha has provided the humans of Earth with femtozoans with the goal of accelerating the advancement of human society through judicious use of a kind of "collective consciousness" that exists in the Sedron Time Stream. In the future, as the human brain continues to evolve, Manny hopes that humans will develop a type of technology-assisted telepathy that will use the zeptite endosymbiont of each human to send and receive sedron-based communications signals.
Using information provided to Tyhry by her future self through the Sedron Time Stream, Tyhry constructs an hierion probe that can can used to extract a person's femtozoan from their brain, causing that person to lose their femtozoan-powered higher brain functionality. Tyhry decides to alter the VLSI chip set inside Diasma so that Diasma can utilize a femtozoan and develop human-like consciousness.
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Glossary for “The sims”.
Casanay- Casanay is Tyhry's childhood home in Arizona. Casanay is a large, luxurious, isolated desert home, paid for by profits from the sale of Eddy's books. Casanay has expansive desert views with natural vegetation and no nearby neighboring houses. This isolation provides privacy for the work happening in Tyhry's basement workshop and occasional visits to Casanay by Manny the bumpha and Nyrtia the Overseer of Earth. There is big fireplace in the great-room and it is along one wall of the great-room where Eddy has the computer workstation that has access to the Reality Viewer technology. There is a large recliner close to Eddy's work station where Zeta often sits and monitor's Eddy's use of the Reality Viewer, without him ever realizing that Zeta's femtozoan from the future gives her some limited telepathic ability. One wing of Casanay has bedrooms for the Watson family and visiting guests. Another wing has utility rooms and a large garage. The third wing has library, the dinning room, the kitchen and Anthony's bedroom suit.
Reality Viewer – A device that allows access to recorded information about past Realities. Everything on Earth contains tiny zeptites. Those zeptites continually transmit information into the Sedron Domain for storage. The Reality Viewer that Eddy has access to accesses information that is stored in the Sedron Domain and provides him with views of past events on Earth in previous Realities of Deep Time.
NOTCH2NL – Tyhry had been genetically engineered by Manny the bumpha. Tyhry has a new variant of the NOTCH2NL gene that gives her an unusual brain structure that allows her to develop some conscious access to information from the Sedron Time Stream.
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Characters in “The Sims”.
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Diasma – A humanoid robot that was manufactured by Manikoid, the world's leading robotics company in 2041. Diasma is the most up-to-date model of humanoid robot manufactured by Manikoid, a Digital Assistant Mark I. Diasma is constantly linked by radio communication to both the powerful computer system in the basement of Casanay and the internet.
Eddy Watson - Zeta's husband. Eddy writes science fiction stories and operates a small publishing company called Virunculus that markets and sells his books. Eddy works from home and only occasionally visits cities for periodic book-signing events for his fans. The large, comfortable and remote high desert home of Eddy and Zeta is called Casanay and was paid for by profits from his popular novels. Eddy incorporates information from the past (obtained using a Reality Viewer of alien design) into his 'fictional' stories of the multi-volume Usas Series.
Zeta Gohrlay - Tyhry's mother. Zeta is an agent who works for Manny the bumpha. Zeta's femtozoan is a time traveler from the future, trained by Manny for its mission in the past.
Tyhry Watson - She recently earned a Masters degree in Computing Systems Engineering. She is the only employee of a robotics company that she recently founded called CoArtTel (COnscious ARTificial inTELigence). She works out of her workshop in the basement of her childhood home, Casanay.
Sedruth – Sedruth is an artificial life-form who curates the Sedron Time Stream. Sedruth is a Sedronite, a form of life composed entirely of sedron matter. Sedruth exists in the Sedron Domain, but can “translate” information that is stored in the Sedron Time Stream and make it available to Tyhry in a form that she can (sometimes) understand.
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Manny - Manny the bumpha is an Interventionist who is dedicated to helping humans learn about advanced technologies. However, Manny's actions on Earth are restricted by the Observers (and the Rules of Intervention). Manny is composed of zeptites and she can fully use the Sedron Time Stream to receive information from herself in the future. Each human has a zeptite endosymbiont inside their brain. Using genetic engineering,Manny has arranged for a few humans such as Tyhry have the required gene patterns that allow them to utilize their zeptite endosymbiont to obtain some conscious awareness of information from the Sedron Time Stream. Manny the bumpha has gradually directed the evolution of the human species towards better compatibility with the Sedron Time Stream.
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Additional information about “The Sims”.
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Providing Diasma with a femtozoan. A major fictional science issue that will have to be discussed by the LLMs in the Writing Room for "The Sims" concerns the technical details of how Diasma will be provided with a functional link to a femtozoan. There are many possible solutions to this "issue". Possibly Manny designed femtozoans so that they can easily link to VLSI chips that have the correct design. The details of this can be discussed in the Writers Room.
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The test subject for femtozoan extraction. The team in the Writers Room will have to decide on the identity of the test subject for Tyhry's experiment in extracting a femtozoan from a human being's body. One possibility is that Zeta will volunteer to participate in Tyhry's femtozoan extraction experiment. We can also introduce other characters as the story develops, so the test subject for Tyhry's experiment could be someone other than Zeta.
What does Eddy know about the Secret History of Humanity and what can he say about it? When Tyhry begins discussing her belief that aliens planted some type of advanced technology inside humans, Eddy can then discuss with her what he knows about femtozoans. The infite block on his behavior restricts him from discussing alien-related topics with people who do not yet know anything about the aliens. Eddy is permitted to talk about aliens when he is speaking to someone who already knows the Secret History of Humanity. Through the years, Manny has sometimes met with Eddy and he can speak freely to her about what he knows. Thus, when Tyhry tells Eddy that she believes aliens have provided technology to humans, Eddy can being speaking to Tyhry about that topic. The team in the Writers Room will have to decide on definitive ideas about how much Eddy knows about the pek and the bumpha at the start of the story.
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A tentative sequence of events: 1) Tyhry works on the consciousness problem with Diasma, 2) She has dream visions that hint at alien devices (femtozoans) being in people's brains, 3) She discusses "alien devices in brains" with Eddy, breaking his infite constraint, 4) Eddy mentions to Tyhry that his Reality Viewer has a very useful search feature. Tyhry describes Sedruth, the mysterious entity who assists her in understanding her 'dream visions'. They deduce that Sedruth is an artificial life-form that serves as the search feature of Eddy's viewer. With that clue, Eddy discovers how to get Sedruth to “jail break” the Reality Viewer, allowing Eddy to use it to access information from inside Observer Base of a past Reality. He obtains information about hierions, femtobots and how Manny has made use of time-traveling femtozoans in past Realities. 5) with help from information gathered by Eddy, Tyhry constructs an hierion probe, 6) She discovers how to extract a femtozoan and deals with the ethical dilemma of whose femtozoan to extract. 7) Eventually Tyhry is able to adapt a femtozoan for use with Diasma, creating the first AI on Earth with human-like consciousness.
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Anthony's status. Zeta's femtozoan knows that Anthony is a pek agent, but everyone else in Casanay thinks that Anthony is simply a very useful human live-in cook and handyman.
Might Zeta give up her femtozoan? The time-traveling femtozoan inside Zeta has been learning how to control Zeta's behavior through all of Zeta's life. Zeta's femtozoan would have no trouble making Zeta invent a logical reason for volunteering to be Tyhry's test subject. Also, Zeta's femtozoan might already be prepared to "recruit" and provide Zeta with a new femtozoan, allowing the time-traveling femtozoan to transfer into Diasma. Zeta would have to learn to use a new femtozoan: in my imagination, this might be similar to the Star Trek episode "The Changeling" when Uhura's brain has its memories erased, but she can relearn everything quickly {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changeling_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)}
Next: a Writers Room session for "The Sims".
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