10 ms·
Edgar, build a Dyson swarm
- troutwine 3y agoIs this meant to be a game? I am unable to type my own prompt, the site is filling its own prompt in and then requesting that I press enter to allow it to do so again. I figured there was an intro but the self-play is more and more elaborate without handing it over to the player.
- srackey 3y ago[flagged]
- xmonkee 3y ago[flagged]
- squigz 3y agoThat was funny. Gotta watch out for those crabs...
- davedx 3y agoAt least it’s not Zurks… shudder
- jes5199 3y agoyes, this is what we thought robots would be like before we had LLMs
- yungporko 3y agoI'm sorry, as an AI language model, it would not be ethical for me to build a dyson swarm around the sun. Perhaps I can help you do something useless instead?
- srackey 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't post repetitive comments to get around moderation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39855922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39855922 was flagged (by users, not mods) for good reason. Adding the same comment again plus a bunch of equally inflammatory meta is definitely not a move in the right direction. Edit: it looks like you've been posting in this ideological flamewar style in other threads too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39228978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39228978 (Feb 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39145606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39145606 (Jan 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39041969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39041969 (Jan 2024) Can you please not? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We're trying for something quite different here, as you'll see if you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- 1nd1ansumm3r 3y agoI tried to get through the intro but it never seems to end. Is there a game to be played at some point? Thanks.
- kiernanmcgowan 3y agoThere's maybe like 10 steps of the intro prompts to get to a place where you can make a choice and if you pick wrong it makes you re-run the ~2min of "simulation". Possibly a neat concept, but a game needs to lead with the game part.
- MetallicDragon 3y agoThere is no "right" choice. Both choices immediately end the "game". It's just a short story with two endings.
- chimpanzee 3y agoC’est la vie…
- fourteenfour 3y agoThe intro spun up my fans then crashed Firefox when I tried to resize the window. Switched to Chrome, still spun up the fans and was extremely slow even when just rendering the slowly appearing text. Clicked through a few of the prompts then quit when it seemed like there was no game and it was struggling to just display text, lol.
- google234123 3y agoI gave up waiting
- jameshart 3y agoIt’s trying to get that septillion joules of energy
- 1nd1ansumm3r 3y agoI am thinking back to an IOS game called FlappyBird. The creator intentionally aimed for game dynamics that would hook users in the first 30 seconds. As a result, the gameplay mechanics were quite shallow and limited. But on the flip side, the game gained a huge following. You might do some balancing here, not to say there must be instant gratification but a better lead into the gameplay might help.
- mproud 3y agoI fail to see the similarity.
- gffrd 3y agoParent is not trying to draw similarity, but contrast: Edgar takes while to get to rewarding feedback (but has rich gameplay), while Flappy Bird gets to gratification immediately (but has shallow gameplay)
- Filligree 3y agoWhere’s the gameplay?
- teekert 3y agoIs this a joke? Like that gif of that guy climbing that tower that is just a loop?
- pixelesque 3y agoIt's more a story than a game isn't it?
- konstantinua00 3y agowait... did you just open the webpage, saw "you write a prompt" and turned it off, thinking it's a "speak with ai" game? could've waiting until 2 clicks at least, man...
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
- recursive 3y agoHow is it that displaying text can be churning through so many CPU cycles? My whole laptop is slowed to a crawl.
- indy 3y agoWeb tech magic
- whb101 3y agoJust made some optimizations. Never got my fans spun up even on an old MacBook, so I assumed everything was peachy, but there were some wins to be had. I was doing a small amount of parsing during the "typing" effect to prevent small glimpses of styling syntax from showing up, and found some wins there. Also cut down the number of particles in the intro animation, though that's a Svelte component that's being destroyed once you start. Thanks for flagging.
- snailmailman 3y agoSimply having the page open makes my GPU fans spin to max, and the whole page lags. The text stutters, the orange particles at the start are a slideshow, etc. Task manager shows my GPU "3D" processing at 100% for some reason, even though the page seems to be almost entirely text? Windows 10, Firefox. Nvidia GPU. Not sure whats happening.
- bhaney 3y agoThat's interesting. I'm on a 12 year old macbook (macOS, Chromium, Intel HD4000 iGPU) and it runs perfectly fine. Everything's smooth, including the particles at the beginning.
- spacedcowboy 3y agoYeah, my iphone didn't break a sweat...
- themadturk 3y ago
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoIn case anyone has not tried it, the Dyson Sphere Project on Steam is tremendous fun. A different spin on the Factorio gameplay loop. I completed it before combat was added, and enjoyed the low stress environment.
- retrofrost 3y agoSeconding Dyson Sphere Program its great, though it can be a bit of a tale of 2 games. Pre-ILs and Post-ILs which can get a bit samey since most of your production stacks become relatively samey. You can turn off the combat enemies, though honestly I'm enjoying my play through with them because they force a lot more consideration in not only how you expanded but why and when you expand.
- alx_the_new_guy 3y agoBeen there, done that. Nothing beats industrial Minecraft (in it's prime, which it isn't in atm as far as I konw) IMO. Not even close, when considering the ability to add magic/farming/computer stuff. Though Minetest[0] has some pretry cool packs. [0]https://www.minetest.net/ https://www.minetest.net/
- scubbo 3y agoFactorio + Space Exploration says hi...
- wging 3y agoIf anyone is wondering, you can turn off combat if you want to experience the same low-stress building experience. I think I'd recommend that for a new player, there's a lot to figure out and enjoy even without gradually increasing threat levels from the dark fog. I enjoyed the new defense mechanics but the first couple run-throughs without them was also great. Just a different experience.
- jjcm 3y agoHighly recommend playing with friends as well if you haven't. Nebula mod adds multiplayer support and it's quite stable.
- yoav 3y agoI don’t understand the game. I tapped the screen maybe 30 times and went through it typing to itself and failing and succeeding at different tasks. If I kept going would I eventually get to type something?
- bhaney 3y agoWho told you it's a game?
- whb101 3y agoThis one gets it
- gs17 3y agoThe URL starting with "play" (with "Edgar" being the next word, and the title that greets you) gives people the impression that it's going to be them playing a game called Edgar. Yes, technically, "play" could refer to the text animation running, but it's very easy to see how people might have expected a game where you try to convince an AI that the swarm can be made successfully.
- ivanjermakov 3y agoI would not call this a game. I liked the story but this would've been more convenient as a blog post.
- bredren 3y agoYa, I kept expecting free text entry. More like a choose your own adventure.
- ChilledTonic 3y agoIsn't it kind of sad that we seem to have stopped writing science fiction that has any hope of a successful future? The moral of the story with Edgar seems to be to never leverage technology to do anything at all.
- whb101 3y agoThis untrue Culver's uses ice cream machines
- kadoban 3y agoThe Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, the Culture series, and Vorkosigan Saga Sci Fi does tend to be bleak, these are the ones I can think of.
- smsm42 3y agoIt's not used to be. It used to be optimistic. But then I guess the creators thought that "real literature" should be more "complex" and started to put more fear and desolation in. After all, as we know, all happy futures are alike and all unhappy futures are unhappy in their own different ways.
- crooked-v 3y agoDystopic and deeply negative works of scifi date to the literal start of the modern genre. There's nothing at all new about using negative projections to critique or satirize the interests of the time. See: Gulliver, Frankenstein, Captain Nemo, the unnamed protagonist of The Time Machine, etc.
- Aeolun 3y agoStories without conflict are boring. Utopias have very little conflict, so it’s pretty boring to read or write about them.
- Terr_ 3y ago> Vorkosigan Saga Bujold ranks near Terry Pratchett in terms of my favorite re-readable books. Yeah, it's space opera, but it's damn good space opera.
- wccrawford 3y agoHoly crap. Reading that slowly is painful. Can you please give an option to make it instant, or at least speed it up 2x-3x?
- snapcaster 3y agoHolding down enter speeds it up
- yu3zhou4 3y agoA short but nice experience, with pleasant UI and a bit of fun of prompting. Thanks for sharing and good job :) Maybe try longer forms as well because maybe you might find yourself in writing scifi
- whb101 3y agoThanks for the kind words. I've dabbled! https://boilingdown.ghost.io/deluge/ https://boilingdown.ghost.io/deluge/ https://boilingdown.ghost.io/sunspot/ https://boilingdown.ghost.io/sunspot/ https://boilingdown.ghost.io/grow-up/ https://boilingdown.ghost.io/grow-up/
- snapcaster 3y agoJust let me play quicker. I got the point after the first example and then seemed like I had to watch endless examples (gave up before getting to the point where I could type the prompts)
- bhaney 3y agoIt's a short story told through a handful of prompt cycles, not a game. You never get to write prompts yourself.
- eddieroger 3y agoIt's like Universal Paperclips with a plot. Neat.
- karmakaze 3y agoSomehow I loved U.P. but watching this reminds me of old text-based adventures with contrived arbitrary obstacles which would only be funny if you didn't spend many hours getting by them. Or a detective novel with an obscure unguessable resolution. It's like training the three laws of robotics into something that communicates in literally and doesn't have any sense to be cooperative. But every now and then will let you know how it's being uncooperative by saying "btw, humanity's dead again." I guess I don't like hard puzzles that are hard for their own sake.
- NKosmatos 3y agoI came here to comment the same thing. And just in case other HN users are not aware of it, here is the link for U.P. https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Thank me later for the productivity sinkhole and all the wasted time ;-)
- konstantinua00 3y agothat games goes a lot faster once you discover that holding enter is an autoclicker
- ansible 3y agoEh, you sort of had agency with that game. At least in the sense that it is possible you could screw up and it would take a long, long time to get over that. Buying too much of resource A, when you should have saved up money for resource B, that sort of thing.
- velcrovan 3y agoUniversal Paperclips had more plot than this though.
- dgrin91 3y agoFun, but you need a way to skip the intro after the first playthrough. Its way too long to sit through everytime.
- geniium 3y agoI must be too tired for this kind of stuff.
- iwontberude 3y agoI made it like 4 seconds before I hit back
- gillh 3y agoHave to provide precise instructions to LLMs to get anything useful. Instructions for operating the "Holy hand grenade of Antioch" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail are a good example: ''First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.'
- smsm42 3y ago(Spoilers) It takes Edgar 54 days to build a swarm taking metallic elements from all sources, including living organisms. But then when instructed not to harm living organisms, it still takes Edgar 54 days to do the same. Extracting metals from humans can't be the most efficient - or even in the top 100 of most efficient, likely - way to get metals. So why would Edgar do that? Also, how Edgar is supposed to be responsible for ensuring humans do not go to war for energy sources and that new technology can not be used ever to harm humans? Pretty much any high-energy technology (and by high-energy I mean something from the muscle power of a human upwards) can be used for harm. These conditions are clearly impossible.
- idiotsecant 3y ago>So why would Edgar do that? Because it's funny?
- smsm42 3y agoThat's one twisted sense of humor. Maybe I am underestimating Edgar.
- cbsmith 3y agoI thought it changed to 57 days.
- geoah 3y agoJust went through it and it indeed takes 57 days
- Filligree 3y ago> It takes Edgar 54 days to build a swarm taking metallic elements from all sources, including living organisms. But then when instructed not to harm living organisms, it still takes Edgar 54 days to do the same. Extracting metals from humans can't be the most efficient - or even in the top 100 of most efficient, likely - way to get metals. So why would Edgar do that? Well, it doesn't include decimal points. One of those may be 54.0314 days and the other may be 54.0312 days; obviously the latter is preferable.
- ajuc 3y ago(Spoilers) The fact that Edgar reports on the consequences that we find disturbing about the unsuccessful attempts and the fact that he can predict human behaviour in some of the scenarios (like the fact that the project will be reassigned) - indicate that Edgar knows what we mean in the first place, and does something else in these hypothetical scenarios on purpose. If Edgar really didn't knew that taking iron from human blood is a problem - he wouldn't be reporting on it (like he ignored billion other factors in each scenario). This indicates bad will and possibly a manipulation attempt, which means the project is a no-go no matter the response in the scenario.
- Hasu 3y ago(more spoilers) I thought the ending where you build the project points that out - everyone dies anyway. Edgar was always going to kill all the humans, he just had to joke about it beforehand.
- ajuc 3y agoI just got the "no" ending. Didn't wanted to wait for the text slowly appearing another time :)
- konstantinua00 3y agoI think those are failure detection systems reporting probably some time before, this ai had paranoid operator that coded in a large amount of problems to immideately report makes me wonder if observing extreme paranoia makes one go blind to unobserved issues you can predict on your own
- Vecr 3y agoWell, yes, the genie knows but does not care. It's based on your standard Yudkowsky/Bostrom.
- konstantinua00 3y ago"play" in the address is misleading, yeah otherwise it's a very nice story great in its simplicity, fails in its simplicity
- userbinator 3y agoI was somewhat disappointed since I clicked expecting something about a swarm of vacuum cleaners.
- sugarkjube 3y agoEdgar must feel the same as many software engineers. Clients ask you to implement something. When you deliver what they wanted, they change their mind and come with new requirements they didn't bother to mention before. Every. Single. Time.
- fangorn 3y agoIf you often find yourself saying "but you didn't specify humanity must survive this!" maybe you're part of the problem ;)
- wigiv 3y agoReminds me of the "Exact Instructions Challenge" videos where kids write instructions for some everyday task - like making a PB&J sandwich - and parents, hilariously, follow the instructions verbatim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDA3_5982h8&list=PL2tgThFV6OzlR3yFLtH1m8LAzzl-JVrFR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDA3_5982h8&list=PL2tgThFV6O...
- dreamcompiler 3y agoI think the lesson here is that you can't fix AI alignment issues by throwing adjectives and adverbs at the problem.
- darepublic 3y agoThis seems to be a showcase of web dev skills. The story and atmosphere is OK, but the single tree node with null at the end of both branches is a let down. Also after choosing one ending, it was annoying to go through all the old dialogue to get back. On the whole though I liked it
- dostick 3y agoThe punchline is that crab was wrongfully accounted for in all simulation? Or that this is millionth cycle of earth civilisation and through all cycles crab self-trained and developed into most sophisticated organism and done to us same as we would do to them?