{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "content": "---\ntitle: \"LLM Parlour Games for Overeducated Wankers\"\ndescription: \"Workshop materials for designing and playing parlour games with LLMs,\n  including LLM-augmented 20 Questions and Adventures in Amphibology.\"\ntags:\n  - teaching\n  - ai\n---\n\n_Note: this stuff is the workshop content for an alumni workshop in November\n2024 hosted by the Cybernetic Studio at the ANU School of Cybernetics._\n\n## Abstract\n\nIn this interactive design session participants will design and prototype their\nown language-model-based parlour game. We'll think critically about what\nlanguage models are (and aren't) and what they're good for (and rubbish at).\nYou'll interact with other humans and design systems with goals and guardrails,\nand think about what it means to give input to (and understand output from) LLMs\nand genAI systems.\n\nPrerequisites: ability to lounge around and use big words to impress your\nfriends in games of no stakes whatsoever. Self-satisfied smugness about said\nloquaciousness is helpful but not essential.\n\n## Tech note\n\nThis workshop requires access to a chat-based LLM (e.g. ChatGPT). If you've got\na laptop (or even a phone, although you'll be typing on your janky little phone\nkeyboard) you can head to [https://chatgpt.com](https://chatgpt.com) (no sign-up\nrequired). But if you've got a different favourite chat-based LLM, feel free to\nuse that instead.\n\n## Outline\n\n- intro\n- play 20 questions\n  - shareback\n- adventures in amphibology\n  - shareback\n- design your own LLM parlour game\n  - shareback\n\n## Thesis statement\n\n> the killer app for genAI is parlour games for overeducated wankers\n\n(this is a demographic I know well, because I am one)\n\nTo break it down:\n\n- **parlour**: involving co-located humans. Bored. Night outside, drinks and a\n  warm fire inside... and so\n\n- **games**: to entertain ourselves and each other\n\n...for...\n\n- **overeducated**: word games, word play, we are masters of language and we\n  love to show off\n\n- **wankers**: (literally) self-indulgent. Not about a bigger goal, or doing\n  good in the world, it's just for the heck of it.\n\n## Mechanics of a parlour game\n\n```text\n10 someone says something\n20 someone(s) says something in response\n30 GOTO 20\n```\n\nAs an example, consider the game of\n[Twenty Questions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_questions).\n\n_Ben scrawls on the whiteboard for 5mins_\n\n## Play: _LLM-augmented 20 Questions_\n\nHere are the prompts (you can copy-paste them automatically with the widget at\nthe top right of the text).\n\nTo start, let's have the LLM be the \"answerer\" and you (and other human players)\nbe the \"questioner\", although you'll need to have someone at a laptop be the LLM\nsurrogate. Have them use this (or similar) prompt, and don't show the output to\nthe questioner(s).\n\n```markdown\nYou're playing Twenty Questions, so you need to choose an object and tell me\nwhat it is (I won't tell the other players).\n```\n\nThen, the questioner(s) can ask the LLM questions (via the surrogate) like:\n\n```markdown\nIs the object you're thinking of bigger than a car?\n```\n\nThe surrogate continues to mediate between the LLM and the questioners until\nthere's a winner (either a questioner guesses correctly, or there have been 20\nquestions).\n\n### Shareback\n\n- what's the funnest/funniest moment, and why?\n- what parts sucked?\n- how did your play/strategy/behaivour change over time?\n- did you tweak the game rules at all? if so, how?\n\n## Play: _Adventures in Amphibology_\n\nEvery player thinks of a word or (short) phrase, writes it down on a piece of\npaper and puts it in a hat.\n\nThese words/phrases are all fed into an LLM using the following prompt template:\n\n```text\nYou are an expert in the use of language, and you have been given the following words/phrases:\n\n- <phrase one>\n- <phrase two>\n- <phrase three>\n- etc.\n\nWhich of these words/phrases is the most ambiguous, and why?\n```\n\nThe player who wrote the thing that the LLM chooses scores 1 point. But they're\nnot the winner just yet.\n\nUsing the same words/phrases (i.e. without starting a new ChatGPT session) ask\nthe LLM to pick again, based on successively different criteria:\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases best describes your perfect date?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases is the purplest?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases most evokes the experience of a crisp winter\nsunrise in Canberra?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases would be the best title for a sci-fi movie?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases is the most nihilistic?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases has the most assonance?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases is the most disrespectful?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases would be the best name for a pet cat?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases sounds most like a boy band track from the 90s?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases would be the easiest to explain to a toddler?\n```\n\n```markdown\nWhich of these words/phrases would be the best password for a secret underground\nantifascist network?\n```\n\nAt the end, the player with the most points wins. You can play as many times as\nyou like, with new words/phrases and/or new \"judging\" criteria.\n\n### Shareback\n\n- what's the funnest/funniest moment, and why?\n- what parts sucked?\n- how did your play/strategy/behaivour change over time?\n- did you tweak the game rules at all? if so, how?\n\n## Play: design your own LLM parlour game\n\nWrite/draw it up in such a way that a different group (in this workshop) could\nplay it without you being there to help them out.\n\n### Shareback, and remember\n\nThere's no higher purpose here. It's all just parlour games for overeducated\nwankers.\n",
  "createdAt": "2026-05-13T23:14:44.957Z",
  "description": "Workshop materials for designing and playing parlour games with LLMs, including LLM-augmented 20 Questions and Adventures in Amphibology.",
  "path": "/blog/2024/11/07/llm-parlour-games-for-overeducated-wankers",
  "publishedAt": "2024-11-07T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:tevykrhi4kibtsipzci76d76/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "teaching",
    "ai"
  ],
  "textContent": "Workshop materials for designing and playing parlour games with LLMs, including LLM-augmented 20 Questions and Adventures in Amphibology.",
  "title": "LLM Parlour Games for Overeducated Wankers"
}