About the game - VBPXKSMI/Wiki-Test GitHub Wiki
Basic info
What is this place? Where am I?
You are inside the AI Dungeon 2 Wiki, more specifically the "About the game" page that will give you an overview of the game.
Ok, but what is this AI Dungeon thing?
AI Dungeon 2 is a text-based game where you, the player, play alongside an AI that acts as a dungeon master. Depending on what you tell the AI, it will generate random (and not so random) stories, which you can roleplay through with the AI as though it were a classic "Dungeons and Dragons" game, not dissimilar to other roleplaying tabletop/pen and paper games you usually see on /tg/.
Great, but what is all of that supposed to mean?
Have you ever played an "RPG" (role playing game)? Like Final Fantasy or Dark Souls? No?
Well, in those games you have your missions and quests, with the lore and story of the world already set in stone (by the developers of the game) and you, as the player, have a character to control in that world, following its rules while trying to complete your objectives, whatever they may be.
Now, a dungeon master would be someone that is in charge of creating the missions, quests, lore, story, and rules that YOU would be playing with. This means that each time you play with a dungeon master everything could change depending on the whims of said person acting as the dungeon master.
These games are usually (but not always) played with other people around a table (hence the "tabletop" moniker), inside a house/clubroom, and played using dice, with pen and paper to keep track of the results. This is generally done with a minimal amount of technology, lest they lose the low-tech, homey charm that generally attracts people to them in the first place. Hence, they're a separate and unique form of game compared to more typical digital RPGs.
But if the point of tabletop games is playing in person with others, then why would I want to play with an AI?
Good question, so here's a few reasons.
The potential, and fun, of this game is that you control the story while playing; the game is your restaurant, and the AI your maître d'. The AI will take your input, your story, and your ideas and run with them, hand-tailoring an experience built just for you, all in real-time and faster than any human dungeon master could ever hope to be. Nor do you have to handle the typical interpersonal affairs of a tabletop game: no waiting for people to all have free time, no being railroaded by a dungeon master caught up in their own grandiose stories, and no player drama to be dealing with.
You can think of it like the difference between playing singleplayer vs multiplayer games: some people prefer the former, perhaps because they don't want to deal with people, or maybe they simply enjoy the games more when alone, but ultimately, they prefer a solo experience. In any case, both kinds of games are engaged and played with a different kind of mindset, but for those looking for that solo experience, this game is second to none in replicating the feel that classic tabletop games have to offer. Which is no small thing, given the near limitless potential and original creativity that the human mind can focus into interesting stories, but with its state-of-the-art AI and some of that special human ingenuity from you, dear reader, the game manages to do just that.
Well, it's intriguing, but what can you do in the game?
Short answer: anything you can dream up.
Long answer: the most important thing is that with this game you can potentially roleplay the settings of your dreams, be that living in a fantasy land, tending a farm with your family and living a comfy life, taking on the role of detective in the crime-ridden city of Chicago, or anything in between. It can't be overstated: anything can be done in this game so long as you have the imagination.
Of course, to answer the question many of you probably have right now: yes, you can also create stories featuring your waifu in any capacity that you can think up, whether that's talking to her, living a life together, or straight up fucking her brain into mush (literally, if that's your thing).
Which leads to one of the greater advantages that the AI has over human dungeon masters, and that is its capacity to create remarkable stories that can cater to your most /d/egenerate fetishes or embarrassing desires. What does that mean? That the AI is capable of creating not just believable erotic stories, but engrossing ones, all without having to deal with the awkward and erratic nature of trying to "ERP" with other people through the internet, chatrooms, or worst of all, real life.
All of that culminates into a game that doesn't really fit into any single genre. Depending on what you want out of the game, it could be a fantasy game, a sci-fi game, a dating simulator, a (good) porn game, or whatever else you think up. What kind of game it evolves into is entirely up to the player, and that is one of its greatest strengths: it gives you the freedom to dream and see it all come to life.
Now, how about we cut you free of that drudgery in normal games for something colorful, and see what this AI has to offer you?
Alright, you've got my attention now. But how does this all work? Where's the catch?
Only catch is that like with any AI it can get confused by extended context, and it will require some patience before it spits out that masterpiece story you're looking for. But if that's not a dealbreaker for you, then it's easy to get started, and this Wiki will show you how to do that, tips for managing its shortcomings, and so much more.
That's great and all, but how does it really work?
Brainlet warning, the intricacies of AIs get complicated and math-heavy fast.
But as a brief overview for those less mathematically inclined, the AI works off probabilities. You train it on an enormous amount (literally >40GB, or right about 350 million lines) of text written by humans and it analyzes them to figure out what word comes next in any given sentence. Then you give it a prompt to start with, and it takes off with it.
For instance, if you were to give it "You live in the United States" as a prompt, the next two words will probably be "of America" because those are what it's seen follow "United States" the most. Of course, such predictability goes against the very unpredictable nature of natural language, so the AI contains programming (a softmax function) to never have any given option always be the answer 100% of the time. This is to encourage more varied responses and prevent looping when it runs into a predictable or generic sequence of text.
As for the game's model itself, the default version is a 1558M (or -XL) GPT-2 model that was finetuned on 30MB of second person CYOA (choose your own adventure) data (texts) on top of the ~40GB of general web texts it was initially trained on.
Ok, I've got the gist. But you mentioned models, data, training, finetuning and GPT-2. What the fuck are you talking about?
As was said before, AIs are not simple, and transformer models (what GPT-2 is) are some of the more complex language models of there right now. Chances are you shouldn't bother too much with trying to figure it all out, but in the next section there'll be a briefing of the more technical terms. Consider it supplementary reading for those curious about the technicalities of the games, so read on if that sounds like you and you want to know more.
I might take a look at it, but you sure you are not only going to throw me a bunch of info for the entire page, right? I want to play the game now that I'm hooked, you know?
Rest assured, the info is only there for your own good and also to avoid unnecessary questions later on in the threads. And of course, the how and where to play will be discussed in one of the following sections.