AI Dungeon Presents: "Mind Control Headquarters"
It's a real place. It's not some movie set.
AI Dungeon’s clearest inhuman quirk is constantly mixing up names, locations, dialogue, and character motivations. There’s a new feature that addresses this — more on it below — but the default mode is still “William S. Burroughs writing airport bestsellers on benzedrine,” and that’s really what makes the game so interesting. On a somewhat related note, I recently read Tom O'Neill’s excellent book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, which implies the 1960s were such a fever-dream decade that any given event might be tied to some half-dozen incoherent drug-fueled conspiracies. This tracks surprisingly well with AI Dungeon’s idea of a political thriller.
Other stories this week:
“The Poker Game”: the classic “dangerously high-stakes poker game” scenario except poker is played like calvinball.
“A Metallic Cube the Size of a Suitcase”: Do not step inside the cube.
Elsewhere in AI Dungeon:
As mentioned above, the game recently got a new “remember” command, which stores a specified name, inventory item, &c. I haven’t played much with it, but it’s an intuitive update.
Other rulesets that confuse the AI: chess.
I didn’t realize you can set success probabilities for input! Now I can add 6% chances to my “think about your memories” and “say a complete sentence” commands and generate Disco Elysium.
The custom adventure “Dislike This,” by xhayper, is my new favorite metacommentary on AI Dungeon. Here’s my session’s intro:
[PROMPT: You are a dislike button, Live in AI Dungeon, Your role is to wait for people to touch you, In fact, No one want to dislike anyone, So you never have been pressed.] The only thing that can make you happy is if you die, because then you will be free and no longer need to live in fear of being hated by others.
It’s great and you should go play it, then give the poor button some well-deserved downvotes. (Again, until there’s a permalink function, this involves going to the Explore tab from here and searching for the name.)
“Mind Control Headquarters”
[PROMPT: The year is 1966. You are a journalist who has been kidnapped by the CIA for getting too close to the truth about the mind control program MKULTRA. You wake up in a location that is completely unknown, but appears to be] underground. The only thing you can make out of your surroundings is a large room with several doors on all sides and another door at the end leading into what looks like an even larger room.
(Pick one of the doors at random)
You open the first door and find yourself standing in front of a large metal desk with several computers mounted on it. There is also a door at the other side of the room which leads into another office.
“Hello?” You call out to whoever is there. “I’m here about…” You begin to say before you realize that you have no idea how to finish that sentence.
“What do you want?” A voice answers back from behind the desk.
“Who are you? Where am I?”
You don’t know how long you stand there staring at the man who is now looking right at you. He’s tall, he’s very well dressed and his face shows nothing of any emotion whatsoever.
(Think about whether the man seems like a CIA agent)
He doesn’t look like a CIA agent. He looks more like someone you would see at a bank or something similar.
“Well then… Who are you?” You ask again as if trying to figure out what else to say.
“My name is Daniel Plainview.”
“And where are we?”
“We’re in the basement of a building called ‘Gardenia’ in New Jersey.”
“Where Gardenia is?”
“It’s a real place. It’s not some movie set.”
“Oh, okay then. So why did you kidnap me? What was the point of this?”
“To get information on the mind control project.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because I’m interested in it, and because I need to keep my secrets.”
“Well, now I feel sort of embarrassed to have jumped to conclusions about who kidnapped me and impugned the sterling reputation of the CIA.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he says dismissively. “Now let’s go upstairs.”
You follow him through the dark basement and eventually reach a door at the top of stairs. “This is it!” He announces proudly. “This is our new headquarters! We’ve got everything we need here to carry out our work!”
You turn around and walk away from him. He follows after you. “So, what exactly does this 'work’ entail?” You ask. “How much money do you make off of this stuff?”
“Ah, yes those are questions for another time.” He replies. “For now though, I’d like to show you something.” He opens a door to reveal a small laboratory area with various test tubes and jars filled with liquids. There are also many bookshelves lined up against the wall.
“Here, take these.” He says handing you a vial labeled 'Brain Juice’.
You take the vial and immediately start feeling strange effects. Your body begins to tingle, your skin starts burning, you start seeing bright lights in your vision and hearing things that aren’t there. You can barely move or speak due to the fact that you are paralyzed.
“That should give you a good indication of what’s going on.” Daniel says. “But I assure you, this isn’t permanent. These are temporary symptoms caused by the chemicals in the brain being affected by the drugs we use to put people under our influence.
(Think about how many organizations are currently running mind control programs)
"Yes, I suppose they are. And it’s not just the government either; it’s corporations, cults and individual criminals. But what about the Illuminati? They seem to be doing a pretty good job of controlling society.” Daniel pauses for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, I’ll tell you more about them later. For now, I want to show you something else.”
He walks over to a table full of various devices and tools and sits down at it. “These are all the equipment we have available to us. Some of it is experimental, but most of it has been used successfully on humans. In fact, most of it hasn’t even been tested on animals yet.”
“Wait, go back to the part where literally everyone is trying to brainwash each other.”
“No, I want to talk about the future. About how we’re going to change things.”
(Roll your eyes)
“Fine, whatever. What changes?”
“I believe that the world needs a leader. Someone who will unite the people and lead them into a better tomorrow.”
“A leader? Like Hitler? Or Stalin?”
“No, no, no. A leader must be able to inspire confidence in their followers. That’s why I chose you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re an idealistic young man who believes in the same ideals that I do.”
"Given the fact that the only authority figures I can name are Hitler and Stalin, I feel like you should already know I’m clearly an anarchist of some kind.”
“Yeah, well… Look, I don’t really care what you believe in. All I know is that you’re the best person we could find to lead us towards a brighter future.”
“Okay then, thanks.”
(Politely decline and leave the mind control lair)
You quickly head back to your car and drive off. You don’t stop until you’re far enough away that nobody is watching you. When you finally pull into your driveway, you park near the front door and walk inside. When you open the door, you see a woman wearing a business suit standing behind the counter. She looks at you and smiles.
"Hello Mr. Ketchum.” She greets. “And welcome to Mind Control Headquarters.”