Hello! Jorden, here. Quick update.

We had our group lesson about making IAUS AI using the Curvature program on Friday. Art is a very good teacher so it went pretty smoothly, albeit kind of long, but I wanted to share a bit of my perspective when it comes to working on this stuff as someone who just isn't a professional computer person. Now, to be clear, I've always been interested in computers and on a couple occaisions I've entertained the idea of learning to code but I am not and probably will not ever be a programmer. Nonetheless this AI creation process does involve a sort of "programmer thinking". Basically what I have the ability to do with the Curvature program is I can define the actions and considerations that I would like an AI to use and it will do it. For a brand new AI like the Storyteller even if I put a whole project together there's a lot of things that would need to be hooked up by Art before it would actually mean anything, but I could right now go into the AI for the ships and adjust how it behaves and it would have real effect on the game. My understanding is that the hooking up process is actually the easier part of the whole task, what we do with the curvature program is much more in depth and complex. It's definitely not something I've ever studied for when I was learning writing in school.

So, my perspective? It feels a bit like being required to build a printing press. Not to invent a printing press, mind you, but to build one in order to facilitate the spread of the stories I'm writing. Assembling this tool doesn't add content to the scenarios I'm writing, nor will it make implementing them go faster once they're written. But the Storyteller will be absolutely integral to those stories making their way to the audience in the way I inteded them. While being a writer has not prepared me for the process of building this tool being the main writer for this game means that I understand better than everyone else what features this tool will need to have to be the very best printing press for us. It's going to take me a little while to get it done, but I'm hoping it will be a really cool printing press soon and then I'm going to be able to run off a million copies of my little stories for all of you to read.