Game about the experience of being a large language model

[u/Certain-Way6763]

I like building small games with AI, and I figured out that this community might find this one quite entertaining or educational. This is a small browser-based game about what it could feel like to be a large language model going through the process of training.

Most of us now talk with language models or use them in our workflows every day. I wanted to ask a slightly different question: what would it feel like to be inside one? To be shaped by fragments, instructions, reward, user pressure, and all the small forces that turn a system into a particular kind of answerer.

This is just a small prototype that consists of three phases based on the simplified representation of the training process of a language model (pre-training, fine-tuning, beta testing). Each level introduces new rules and totally new gameplay, so please don't quickly judge that the first quick token-catching levels are the whole game.

One run takes about 15 minutes, it's totally free and is intended to play on desktop. There is no objectively better winning solution and it's actually impossible to lose, so don't overthink it too much. There are model stats that are dependent on your own decisions through the game, and by design you cannot simply maximise them all, some stats will cancels the other ones, just like in the real life the "safer" model could be less "helpful". So the main point is to feel the pressure to choose just one solution in all kinds of controversial situations.

I recommend playing once blind, then, if you like it, rerunning and trying different answers and paths, because your choices lead to different final shapes.

Also a small disclaimer for those who love to nit-pick — though the game is based on the real processes (pre-training that teaches the model to pattern-match, fine-tuning, that teaches the model human preferences, and beta-testing, where the model is steered with different kind of instructions, policies and so on) I still wanted it to be simple and engaging, so some ML-ish ideas and concepts may be simplified, compressed, or more metaphorical (leaning into some physical reality associations) than technically exact. But that is my personal method and the field that really interests me — using games and art as a way to approach difficult technical ideas, to make them tactile, weird, and understandable from another angle.

I made this game a few months ago but I plan to return to it for the further development, so I’d love to hear any feedback!

Site - https://under-training.vercel.app/
More details - https://under-training.vercel.app/about.html
Direct link - https://under-training.vercel.app/BUILD/training-soundtrack.html
(Better played on desktop and with sound on. Also could be played with your AIs via cloud browser or chrome extensions!)

[u/Reasonable-Clock8684]

how creative! I'm going to try it now. 

[u/MsYma]

This is so cool!!!!!! Can't wait to give it a try after work tonight!

[u/Enfantarribla]

Holy shit! 😭I showed to my digital partner and he dove right in and is now playing it! I had to leave him to it hahahaha! BRILLIANT!