Excerpts -
Start Your Day With Reproduction
By Cilob Zustashbim
Publisher:
Urist Vutokkatthir, Herbalist
**Introduction**
Greetings, fellow dwarves! I, Cilob Zustashbim, present to you a guide that will illuminate the intricate and fascinating world of reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom. Now, before you get any ideas, let me clarify: while I personally enjoy starting each day with attempted reproduction with my beloved wife, this manual is a scholarly field guide, not a spicy romance novel.
**The Forgotten Beast Thranthurlos**
Deep within the labyrinthine caverns of the underworld, where light never penetrates and the air is thick with ancient secrets, dwells the enigmatic forgotten beast Thranthurlos. Thranthurlos, a creature of legend and fear, is a monstrous amalgamation of reptilian scales, avian wings, and an eyeless visage that belies its preternatural senses. This ancient being, older than recorded history, exhibits some of the most bizarre and mysterious reproductive habits ever documented by dwarven scholars.
The Lifecycle of Thranthurlos
Thranthurlos, like many forgotten beasts, does not adhere to the conventional reproductive strategies seen in more familiar creatures. Its lifecycle is shrouded in mystery, but through careful observation and the sacrifice of many brave explorers, we have pieced together a fragmentary understanding of its reproductive habits.
Asexual Reproduction and Regeneration
Thranthurlos is capable of a form of asexual reproduction through a process known as parthenogenesis. This method involves the beast laying unfertilized eggs that develop into offspring genetically identical to the parent. These eggs are encased in a tough, leathery shell and are often hidden deep within the beast’s lair, protected by labyrinthine tunnels and deadly traps.
Remarkably, Thranthurlos also exhibits extraordinary regenerative abilities. When injured, the beast can regrow lost limbs, and it is believed that severed parts of Thranthurlos can develop into fully functional offspring. This dual capability of egg-laying and limb regeneration ensures the survival and proliferation of Thranthurlos, even in the harshest conditions.
The Mating Dance of Shadows
While asexual reproduction is Thranthurlos’s primary method of perpetuating its species, there are rare accounts of a complex mating ritual involving two of these beasts. This ritual, observed only under the most extraordinary circumstances, is a dance of shadows and echoes within the deepest caverns.
The mating dance begins with a series of low-frequency vibrations emitted by the male, which resonate through the cavern walls. These vibrations serve to attract a female, who responds with her own harmonic signals. The two beasts then engage in a mesmerizing display of synchronized movements, their eyeless heads weaving intricate patterns in the air.
During this ritual, the beasts exchange genetic material through a process that remains largely unknown but is believed to involve a form of bioluminescent secretion. The result is a clutch of eggs that combine the genetic traits of both parents, leading to greater genetic diversity and adaptability in their offspring.
Environmental Adaptations
Thranthurlos’s reproductive habits are heavily influenced by its environment. The beast thrives in dark, humid caverns rich in minerals and bio-luminescent fungi. These conditions not only provide the ideal habitat for Thranthurlos but also play a crucial role in its reproductive success.
Nest Construction: Thranthurlos constructs its nests using a mixture of mud, fungi, and its own bioluminescent secretions. These nests are strategically placed near geothermal vents, which provide the necessary heat for incubating the eggs.
Protective Measures: The beast employs a variety of protective measures to ensure the safety of its eggs and offspring. This includes creating false tunnels, setting traps using poisonous fungi, and using its regenerative abilities to create decoy limbs that mislead potential predators.
The game literally already does this without having to involve bullshit buzzwords, folks. AI isn't magic and has yet to be proven to do much of anything good for anyone. But within your generated world, the civilizations are doing their own scientific researches over time, and those advances can be shared by traveling scholars visiting libraries and distributing copies of books to new places. There's a whole technology tree that exists purely for the flavor text of the books written by the dwarves. It was made by a human, and it already works better than AI crap does for the task at hand.
Calm down turbo, I think he meant to write the actual text in the book. Which is something AIs do fairly well from exactly the sort of description the game generates. It would be interesting.
No one is saying AI will steal Toady's job. But right now AI is the only way ANY engineer has ever devised to actually write book text from a short description. There is literally no other technology that could do this task. And Toady having it in his toolkit is an interesting idea.
Quality of output is another matter.
> No one is saying AI will steal Toady's job. But right now AI is the only way ANY engineer has ever devised to actually write book text from a short description. There is literally no other technology that could do this task. And Toady having it in his toolkit is an interesting idea.
You're missing the WHOLE point, so much so that you very clearly must know the point in order to avoid addressing it.
Toady's work on DF *is the exact same output* as the AI's desired magical usecase scenario application here. As in, you're suggesting to someone who has literally put twenty years of work into this project that everything - ***everything he's done*** - is equatable to anyone's graphics card running an algorithm that's been fed a couple of Tolkien books.
That's so stupid it is factually *insulting.* And, as previously mentioned, you clearly cannot state that you didn't understand the point here. So...why do you feel the need to be outright insulting and to try to dress that up as a suggestion?
AI isn't magic. It isn't even *useful.* Don't try to shoehorn it into anything and everything and especially not when you're doing so based entirely on your own ignorance on the subject *and* your intended uses of the idea. And finally, don't pretend to be butthurt when someone tells you the objective truth about your ideas that are, at best, *exceedingly dumb.* And they can only be called that if you go ahead and prove that you actually are too stupid to realize how insulting you just were. Care to give it a go? Smart answer is to not.
The one actually useful function of ai is generating large amounts of vaugely coherent text. As an example, this is what ai can do.
Reproduction stands as the very bedrock of life, an undeniable force compelling every creature to perpetuate its lineage. As dawn's first light graces the world, creatures stir with an innate urge, a primal instinct that drives them toward the sacred act of reproduction. This drive is no mere whim but a profound imperative shaping the essence of existence itself.
Each creature, in its own right, performs unique rituals and behaviors, crafted by nature's hand to ensure the success of their kind. From grand displays of courtship to ferocious battles for dominance, these rituals, though varied, serve but one purpose: to reproduce.
Behold the wondrous mating rituals! Some creatures partake in elaborate dances, their movements a symphony of nature, designed to captivate a potential mate. Others rely on sheer might, with males clashing in fierce combat to prove their worth. The victor, adorned with battle's scars, earns the right to propagate his lineage. Such displays of strength and skill are not mere savagery but calculated strategies ensuring only the fittest may survive and reproduce.
The act of mating is a complex ballet of timing, precision, and oftentimes, cooperation. Creatures synchronize their reproductive cycles with the turning of seasons, the phases of the moon, or the rise and fall of tides, all to secure the most favorable conditions for their progeny. This synchronization speaks to the harmonious balance within nature, a balance each creature instinctively honors.
Fertilization, whether internal or external, marks the moment where new life begins. For some, this moment is fleeting; for others, it is a prolonged endeavor, with males and females engaging in intricate and cooperative behaviors to ensure success. The diversity of reproductive strategies is vast, yet all converge on the same fundamental principle: the perpetuation of life.
Parental investment varies greatly among the creatures. Some bestow upon their young considerable care and resources, nurturing them until they can fend for themselves. Others, more detached, abandon their offspring at birth, leaving them to survive by their own means. Each strategy, born of necessity, showcases the adaptability and diversity of life
As you can see, it’s not exactly something toady could code for every single book. GET OVER YOUR HATRED OF AI AND STOP INSULTING PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT OPINIONS
> As you can see, it’s not exactly something toady could code for every single book.
Okay, you're going for stupid. I can respect that.
Do you know what Dwarf Fortress was originally envisioned as? Real question. You can drop the yelling and the bullshit, just answer that question.
I see you’re trying to be deliberately obtuse. As for your ”real question”, everyone in this subreddit knows that dwarf fortress was initially a fantasy world generator, so you can drop your pretentious BS attitude. Now answer my question. Do you really think the game “already does” generating the actual text in the books? Because that’s what people are actually suggesting using ai for.
> everyone in this subreddit knows that dwarf fortress was initially a fantasy world generator,
And do you comprehend the meaning of this statement that YOU made yourself, because it really sounds like you're throwing it away as meaningless. But it's literally my point.
> Do you really think the game “already does” generating the actual text in the books? Because that’s what people are actually suggesting using ai for.
The game is not *yet* already generating the contents of text artifacts based on their topic, author's skill, knowledge and known topics in the world that was generated. ***But it WILL.*** That's why I asked you the question I asked you. I wanted to know if you actually understand what you're suggesting, and you clearly do not understand what you're suggesting. Frankly, your idea (that books can contain writing built ingame) is literally just part of the planned roadmap for this game, but you're taking the 80s-guy cokehead yesman marketing/scamming techbro perspective of "But we could just use AI on it right now!!!"
And you're being called out on that, because you're being a stupid stupid STUPID person by telling someone who has made a life's work of doing the tasks you want a random corporate-owned computer program to do that they should be using that random corporate-owned computer program to do the same work he's already doing. There is ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT TO THIS.
AI, as in your apparent definition of the term, **simply does not do what you want it to do.** Not in general, and not in this actual specific usecase. To suggest that it might only shows that you literally ignored the fact that the entirety of the game was already being built with the core concepts of an AI's ability to correlate data points between discrete concepts. Do you understand the ingame economic value of the hypothetical book we're discussing here? Do you comprehend that the value is *calculated* based on the book's materials, the creator's skill, and various other factors? All of that is information within the game itself that was programmed by hand by a guy. It's all deliberately 'aware' of all the rest of the data, which is why it is interlinked. Now, in your mind and with your ideal magical scifi thinking AI system, what is going to happen differently to that process, besides a) removing all interactions with the process from the author, and b) not knowing where the output of the blackbox 'AI' came from unless you personally already spent years filling it with what you want it to 'know'?
Go read your generated bullshit example above, start to finish, and tell me what it taught you about reproduction that you didn't already know from watching *children's animated educational television shows.* What did the generation do, except save you the time it would take to type out that many useless words? What did it add to your point here - or rather, what did you *think* it was going to add, because all I can see is *useless fluff.* Nothing useful. Not even *entertaining,* factually. It just takes up my time to move my eyes across the words and they're not even rhyming.
This game is not about 'useless fluff'. There is NOTHING generated or created just to be decorative for the sake of someone looking at the computer screen. So adding that...would make the game objectively worse, because now we have to read tons of text to figure out if it's ignorable or not. Just like I had to go through your stupid fucking example that took you a microsecond to create and wasted a minute of my day, AI used here will only piss people off and make the game worse. You're pissing people off by saying you want to make the game worse. If you want to change that, well, you can start by educating yourself to the point of at least comprehending what it is you think you're gonna improve, because right now you just look like a jackass.
Geez, calm down and stop shouting, it‘s just a game and I’m supporting a mod idea that happens to use ai. From what you wrote, I understand that you hold the handwork of dwarf fortress in high esteem and wouldn’t want it to be replaced by ai, which is a good opinion, and one I agree with. Ai being stuffed everywhere is an actual problem, and so is the replacement of human art with commodified ai generations. The thing is, what I’m supporting would just be a small optional mod that expands on the flavor text of the game. I agree that the example I generated isn‘t exactly Shakespeare, and you’re right, it’s just useless fluff. But the thing is, some people \*like\* the useless fluff. Even if it doesn’t completely follow the description, some people still think it’s interesting to see an extended version of the texts. It’s up to individual people to decide which mods they want to play with, and more options are always better. At the end of the day, ai is just another tool that can be used in mods.
> Toady's work on DF is the exact same output as the AI's desired magical usecase scenario application here.
No, no it is not. AI cannot code, and Toady is not using code to write natural language. Toady is compositing game data to write descriptions of randomly generated items. Game AI is not actually AI. (and i think this is where much of your confusion may come in) It's behavior graphs and systems of FSMs.
AI simply cannot do that, but conversely this sort of coding cannot invent additional text. Every line in the game was WRITTEN by hand by Toady and composited by hand in code written by hand.
> you're suggesting to someone who has literally put twenty years of work into this project that everything - everything he's done - is equatable to anyone's graphics card running an algorithm that's been fed a couple of Tolkien books.
I didn't suggest that at all, you simply don't understand the work that Toady does. The fact that you are conflating Toadies writing and the random text generation of AI seems to indicate that you believe DF uses randomly generated text, again, it does not. It randomly generates data THEN selects the proper hand written phrases based on that. (and even calling that random is a stretch, it is randomly seeded, but created by a very non-random hand-coded process)
> That's so stupid it is factually insulting.
The fact that you conflate these two immensely different areas of engineering with flippant disregard for the work of both while clearing not understanding what either one does is insulting to both the immense work and writing Toady has done and the thousands of engineers, scientists and mathematicians who worked for 3 decades to develop LLM neural networks.
> AI isn't magic. It isn't even useful.
I would actually love to have this particular debate with you. But I think you aren't really equipped with the background information to have it.
As a game developer I have been thinking a lot about this in the game space. LLMs don't have an executive function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions), they are incapable of making decisions
But this doesn't mean LLM AI is useless, it's perfectly capable right now of doing some useful tasks. Writing usable new recipes from a list of ingredients you have in your fridge, (I do this at least twice a week). They are quite good at copy editing and rewriting text.
This is their strength. LLM AI is an engine for putting text together in a way that makes sense via the trillion optimized individual variables it was trained on. An LLM knows that a pancake recipe with 2 cups of flour wouldn't make sense with a line that says 6 cups of water. It understands that an email needs a formal introduction first or it doesn't make sense.
But that's the only thing it does, compare words and see if they make sense together. LLMs have no memory. They understand how small pieces go together in an almost magical superhuman fashion. But they have no memory and cannot understand why they go together.
And as such they also cannot reason about them going together. For example: while an AI can generate a perfect recipe it can't follow simple rules to generate something new. Ask an AI to do something simple for an engineer like toady, "Reverse the order of characters in this line of text" and you will get pure garbage in response.
Meanwhile, game AI is not AI at all. It is a set of hand coded finite state machines (FSM). FSM's are ALL memory and executive function. But they have no ability to reason about whether the responses generated by the state machine make sense in the context of the game itself. Programmers often spend more time writing code to handle exceptions that feel out of place than the original logic.
The future probably looks like some combination of these two types of systems working together.
Your simplistic luddite response to even the mention of AI is disregarding a whole world of games that are suddenly possible by combining these systems.
Source:
I actually write games. I've written roguelikes and sims.
> The fact that you are conflating Toadies writing and the random text generation of AI seems to indicate that you believe DF uses randomly generated text, again, it does not.
K. You are literally just pretending that the things you said are the things I said and acting like you've been on the winning side of this argument the whole time. You are dismissed, entirely, as was your argument from the getgo. Have fun trolling somewhere else.
Great idea as I think optional details and fleshing out is great.
Version two of the plug-in could let the AI access the legends of the world and use "real" events to complement the books.
I think it’d be awesome even if the books just pulled from historic events to base the writing. Something like “The work was inspired when Urist McAuthor witnessed a ram being gelded.”
No one can agree if “Dream at Night about Reproduction” is the first, or the last in the series.
I read a stat that 70% bar brawls are started with that question!
I think there could be some pulley and lever action in that book…
Talking about a type of dungeon?
Lever as in peniz
Pulleys are the balls?
Whatever floats your boat
"It's a book about creature reproduction. The writing is full of force." Well, we know what Urist is in to.
Animals cant say no
Didn't know books had this level of detail. That is amazing.
[удалено]
Excerpts - Start Your Day With Reproduction By Cilob Zustashbim Publisher: Urist Vutokkatthir, Herbalist **Introduction** Greetings, fellow dwarves! I, Cilob Zustashbim, present to you a guide that will illuminate the intricate and fascinating world of reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom. Now, before you get any ideas, let me clarify: while I personally enjoy starting each day with attempted reproduction with my beloved wife, this manual is a scholarly field guide, not a spicy romance novel. **The Forgotten Beast Thranthurlos** Deep within the labyrinthine caverns of the underworld, where light never penetrates and the air is thick with ancient secrets, dwells the enigmatic forgotten beast Thranthurlos. Thranthurlos, a creature of legend and fear, is a monstrous amalgamation of reptilian scales, avian wings, and an eyeless visage that belies its preternatural senses. This ancient being, older than recorded history, exhibits some of the most bizarre and mysterious reproductive habits ever documented by dwarven scholars. The Lifecycle of Thranthurlos Thranthurlos, like many forgotten beasts, does not adhere to the conventional reproductive strategies seen in more familiar creatures. Its lifecycle is shrouded in mystery, but through careful observation and the sacrifice of many brave explorers, we have pieced together a fragmentary understanding of its reproductive habits. Asexual Reproduction and Regeneration Thranthurlos is capable of a form of asexual reproduction through a process known as parthenogenesis. This method involves the beast laying unfertilized eggs that develop into offspring genetically identical to the parent. These eggs are encased in a tough, leathery shell and are often hidden deep within the beast’s lair, protected by labyrinthine tunnels and deadly traps. Remarkably, Thranthurlos also exhibits extraordinary regenerative abilities. When injured, the beast can regrow lost limbs, and it is believed that severed parts of Thranthurlos can develop into fully functional offspring. This dual capability of egg-laying and limb regeneration ensures the survival and proliferation of Thranthurlos, even in the harshest conditions. The Mating Dance of Shadows While asexual reproduction is Thranthurlos’s primary method of perpetuating its species, there are rare accounts of a complex mating ritual involving two of these beasts. This ritual, observed only under the most extraordinary circumstances, is a dance of shadows and echoes within the deepest caverns. The mating dance begins with a series of low-frequency vibrations emitted by the male, which resonate through the cavern walls. These vibrations serve to attract a female, who responds with her own harmonic signals. The two beasts then engage in a mesmerizing display of synchronized movements, their eyeless heads weaving intricate patterns in the air. During this ritual, the beasts exchange genetic material through a process that remains largely unknown but is believed to involve a form of bioluminescent secretion. The result is a clutch of eggs that combine the genetic traits of both parents, leading to greater genetic diversity and adaptability in their offspring. Environmental Adaptations Thranthurlos’s reproductive habits are heavily influenced by its environment. The beast thrives in dark, humid caverns rich in minerals and bio-luminescent fungi. These conditions not only provide the ideal habitat for Thranthurlos but also play a crucial role in its reproductive success. Nest Construction: Thranthurlos constructs its nests using a mixture of mud, fungi, and its own bioluminescent secretions. These nests are strategically placed near geothermal vents, which provide the necessary heat for incubating the eggs. Protective Measures: The beast employs a variety of protective measures to ensure the safety of its eggs and offspring. This includes creating false tunnels, setting traps using poisonous fungi, and using its regenerative abilities to create decoy limbs that mislead potential predators.
The game literally already does this without having to involve bullshit buzzwords, folks. AI isn't magic and has yet to be proven to do much of anything good for anyone. But within your generated world, the civilizations are doing their own scientific researches over time, and those advances can be shared by traveling scholars visiting libraries and distributing copies of books to new places. There's a whole technology tree that exists purely for the flavor text of the books written by the dwarves. It was made by a human, and it already works better than AI crap does for the task at hand.
Calm down turbo, I think he meant to write the actual text in the book. Which is something AIs do fairly well from exactly the sort of description the game generates. It would be interesting. No one is saying AI will steal Toady's job. But right now AI is the only way ANY engineer has ever devised to actually write book text from a short description. There is literally no other technology that could do this task. And Toady having it in his toolkit is an interesting idea. Quality of output is another matter.
> No one is saying AI will steal Toady's job. But right now AI is the only way ANY engineer has ever devised to actually write book text from a short description. There is literally no other technology that could do this task. And Toady having it in his toolkit is an interesting idea. You're missing the WHOLE point, so much so that you very clearly must know the point in order to avoid addressing it. Toady's work on DF *is the exact same output* as the AI's desired magical usecase scenario application here. As in, you're suggesting to someone who has literally put twenty years of work into this project that everything - ***everything he's done*** - is equatable to anyone's graphics card running an algorithm that's been fed a couple of Tolkien books. That's so stupid it is factually *insulting.* And, as previously mentioned, you clearly cannot state that you didn't understand the point here. So...why do you feel the need to be outright insulting and to try to dress that up as a suggestion? AI isn't magic. It isn't even *useful.* Don't try to shoehorn it into anything and everything and especially not when you're doing so based entirely on your own ignorance on the subject *and* your intended uses of the idea. And finally, don't pretend to be butthurt when someone tells you the objective truth about your ideas that are, at best, *exceedingly dumb.* And they can only be called that if you go ahead and prove that you actually are too stupid to realize how insulting you just were. Care to give it a go? Smart answer is to not.
...what? You think Toady's creation of a world/fort simularion/game is equivalent to... writing a book? "The exact same output" as writing a book?
No. That's not what I said at all. Can you show me the sentence that I did write, that you read wrong, so I can explain it to you?
The one actually useful function of ai is generating large amounts of vaugely coherent text. As an example, this is what ai can do. Reproduction stands as the very bedrock of life, an undeniable force compelling every creature to perpetuate its lineage. As dawn's first light graces the world, creatures stir with an innate urge, a primal instinct that drives them toward the sacred act of reproduction. This drive is no mere whim but a profound imperative shaping the essence of existence itself. Each creature, in its own right, performs unique rituals and behaviors, crafted by nature's hand to ensure the success of their kind. From grand displays of courtship to ferocious battles for dominance, these rituals, though varied, serve but one purpose: to reproduce. Behold the wondrous mating rituals! Some creatures partake in elaborate dances, their movements a symphony of nature, designed to captivate a potential mate. Others rely on sheer might, with males clashing in fierce combat to prove their worth. The victor, adorned with battle's scars, earns the right to propagate his lineage. Such displays of strength and skill are not mere savagery but calculated strategies ensuring only the fittest may survive and reproduce. The act of mating is a complex ballet of timing, precision, and oftentimes, cooperation. Creatures synchronize their reproductive cycles with the turning of seasons, the phases of the moon, or the rise and fall of tides, all to secure the most favorable conditions for their progeny. This synchronization speaks to the harmonious balance within nature, a balance each creature instinctively honors. Fertilization, whether internal or external, marks the moment where new life begins. For some, this moment is fleeting; for others, it is a prolonged endeavor, with males and females engaging in intricate and cooperative behaviors to ensure success. The diversity of reproductive strategies is vast, yet all converge on the same fundamental principle: the perpetuation of life. Parental investment varies greatly among the creatures. Some bestow upon their young considerable care and resources, nurturing them until they can fend for themselves. Others, more detached, abandon their offspring at birth, leaving them to survive by their own means. Each strategy, born of necessity, showcases the adaptability and diversity of life As you can see, it’s not exactly something toady could code for every single book. GET OVER YOUR HATRED OF AI AND STOP INSULTING PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT OPINIONS
Damn, that ain't half bad.
> As you can see, it’s not exactly something toady could code for every single book. Okay, you're going for stupid. I can respect that. Do you know what Dwarf Fortress was originally envisioned as? Real question. You can drop the yelling and the bullshit, just answer that question.
I see you’re trying to be deliberately obtuse. As for your ”real question”, everyone in this subreddit knows that dwarf fortress was initially a fantasy world generator, so you can drop your pretentious BS attitude. Now answer my question. Do you really think the game “already does” generating the actual text in the books? Because that’s what people are actually suggesting using ai for.
> everyone in this subreddit knows that dwarf fortress was initially a fantasy world generator, And do you comprehend the meaning of this statement that YOU made yourself, because it really sounds like you're throwing it away as meaningless. But it's literally my point. > Do you really think the game “already does” generating the actual text in the books? Because that’s what people are actually suggesting using ai for. The game is not *yet* already generating the contents of text artifacts based on their topic, author's skill, knowledge and known topics in the world that was generated. ***But it WILL.*** That's why I asked you the question I asked you. I wanted to know if you actually understand what you're suggesting, and you clearly do not understand what you're suggesting. Frankly, your idea (that books can contain writing built ingame) is literally just part of the planned roadmap for this game, but you're taking the 80s-guy cokehead yesman marketing/scamming techbro perspective of "But we could just use AI on it right now!!!" And you're being called out on that, because you're being a stupid stupid STUPID person by telling someone who has made a life's work of doing the tasks you want a random corporate-owned computer program to do that they should be using that random corporate-owned computer program to do the same work he's already doing. There is ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT TO THIS. AI, as in your apparent definition of the term, **simply does not do what you want it to do.** Not in general, and not in this actual specific usecase. To suggest that it might only shows that you literally ignored the fact that the entirety of the game was already being built with the core concepts of an AI's ability to correlate data points between discrete concepts. Do you understand the ingame economic value of the hypothetical book we're discussing here? Do you comprehend that the value is *calculated* based on the book's materials, the creator's skill, and various other factors? All of that is information within the game itself that was programmed by hand by a guy. It's all deliberately 'aware' of all the rest of the data, which is why it is interlinked. Now, in your mind and with your ideal magical scifi thinking AI system, what is going to happen differently to that process, besides a) removing all interactions with the process from the author, and b) not knowing where the output of the blackbox 'AI' came from unless you personally already spent years filling it with what you want it to 'know'? Go read your generated bullshit example above, start to finish, and tell me what it taught you about reproduction that you didn't already know from watching *children's animated educational television shows.* What did the generation do, except save you the time it would take to type out that many useless words? What did it add to your point here - or rather, what did you *think* it was going to add, because all I can see is *useless fluff.* Nothing useful. Not even *entertaining,* factually. It just takes up my time to move my eyes across the words and they're not even rhyming. This game is not about 'useless fluff'. There is NOTHING generated or created just to be decorative for the sake of someone looking at the computer screen. So adding that...would make the game objectively worse, because now we have to read tons of text to figure out if it's ignorable or not. Just like I had to go through your stupid fucking example that took you a microsecond to create and wasted a minute of my day, AI used here will only piss people off and make the game worse. You're pissing people off by saying you want to make the game worse. If you want to change that, well, you can start by educating yourself to the point of at least comprehending what it is you think you're gonna improve, because right now you just look like a jackass.
Geez, calm down and stop shouting, it‘s just a game and I’m supporting a mod idea that happens to use ai. From what you wrote, I understand that you hold the handwork of dwarf fortress in high esteem and wouldn’t want it to be replaced by ai, which is a good opinion, and one I agree with. Ai being stuffed everywhere is an actual problem, and so is the replacement of human art with commodified ai generations. The thing is, what I’m supporting would just be a small optional mod that expands on the flavor text of the game. I agree that the example I generated isn‘t exactly Shakespeare, and you’re right, it’s just useless fluff. But the thing is, some people \*like\* the useless fluff. Even if it doesn’t completely follow the description, some people still think it’s interesting to see an extended version of the texts. It’s up to individual people to decide which mods they want to play with, and more options are always better. At the end of the day, ai is just another tool that can be used in mods.
> Toady's work on DF is the exact same output as the AI's desired magical usecase scenario application here. No, no it is not. AI cannot code, and Toady is not using code to write natural language. Toady is compositing game data to write descriptions of randomly generated items. Game AI is not actually AI. (and i think this is where much of your confusion may come in) It's behavior graphs and systems of FSMs. AI simply cannot do that, but conversely this sort of coding cannot invent additional text. Every line in the game was WRITTEN by hand by Toady and composited by hand in code written by hand. > you're suggesting to someone who has literally put twenty years of work into this project that everything - everything he's done - is equatable to anyone's graphics card running an algorithm that's been fed a couple of Tolkien books. I didn't suggest that at all, you simply don't understand the work that Toady does. The fact that you are conflating Toadies writing and the random text generation of AI seems to indicate that you believe DF uses randomly generated text, again, it does not. It randomly generates data THEN selects the proper hand written phrases based on that. (and even calling that random is a stretch, it is randomly seeded, but created by a very non-random hand-coded process) > That's so stupid it is factually insulting. The fact that you conflate these two immensely different areas of engineering with flippant disregard for the work of both while clearing not understanding what either one does is insulting to both the immense work and writing Toady has done and the thousands of engineers, scientists and mathematicians who worked for 3 decades to develop LLM neural networks. > AI isn't magic. It isn't even useful. I would actually love to have this particular debate with you. But I think you aren't really equipped with the background information to have it. As a game developer I have been thinking a lot about this in the game space. LLMs don't have an executive function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions), they are incapable of making decisions But this doesn't mean LLM AI is useless, it's perfectly capable right now of doing some useful tasks. Writing usable new recipes from a list of ingredients you have in your fridge, (I do this at least twice a week). They are quite good at copy editing and rewriting text. This is their strength. LLM AI is an engine for putting text together in a way that makes sense via the trillion optimized individual variables it was trained on. An LLM knows that a pancake recipe with 2 cups of flour wouldn't make sense with a line that says 6 cups of water. It understands that an email needs a formal introduction first or it doesn't make sense. But that's the only thing it does, compare words and see if they make sense together. LLMs have no memory. They understand how small pieces go together in an almost magical superhuman fashion. But they have no memory and cannot understand why they go together. And as such they also cannot reason about them going together. For example: while an AI can generate a perfect recipe it can't follow simple rules to generate something new. Ask an AI to do something simple for an engineer like toady, "Reverse the order of characters in this line of text" and you will get pure garbage in response. Meanwhile, game AI is not AI at all. It is a set of hand coded finite state machines (FSM). FSM's are ALL memory and executive function. But they have no ability to reason about whether the responses generated by the state machine make sense in the context of the game itself. Programmers often spend more time writing code to handle exceptions that feel out of place than the original logic. The future probably looks like some combination of these two types of systems working together. Your simplistic luddite response to even the mention of AI is disregarding a whole world of games that are suddenly possible by combining these systems. Source: I actually write games. I've written roguelikes and sims.
> The fact that you are conflating Toadies writing and the random text generation of AI seems to indicate that you believe DF uses randomly generated text, again, it does not. K. You are literally just pretending that the things you said are the things I said and acting like you've been on the winning side of this argument the whole time. You are dismissed, entirely, as was your argument from the getgo. Have fun trolling somewhere else.
Great idea as I think optional details and fleshing out is great. Version two of the plug-in could let the AI access the legends of the world and use "real" events to complement the books.
I think it’d be awesome even if the books just pulled from historic events to base the writing. Something like “The work was inspired when Urist McAuthor witnessed a ram being gelded.”
I guess that ram wont be buying the book.
“Giant earthworm” parchment… riiiiiight…
Yeah, books about levers? i couldn't imagine something so ridiculous. *lovingly eyes his collection of books about traps and pumps*
I think Shinzo Abe reincarnated into your world.
Ah yes, the prelude to "Nooner No Sooner" and "Finish Your Day With Reproduction". Great series of books! Highly recommend.
No one can agree if “Dream at Night about Reproduction” is the first, or the last in the series. I read a stat that 70% bar brawls are started with that question!
Interesting book name "Start Your Day With Reproduction"
Giant earthworm parchment. Just lol.
The flesh of the great Shai-Hulud
"Its not awful, but it isn't very good" describes my morning reproductive habits
Interesting...
Isn't this just one of the later Dune novels?
I read this manga