Assignment: Build Something That Is Not a Person

In the lecture, one sentence turned AI into an arcade machine: a game, a screen, a memory, and a set of controls, all made of words and symbols. Then one more sentence changed the laws of physics inside it.

In this exercise you will build one of these yourself. Not a character. A thing. It has to draw itself, remember its state, obey your controls, and keep working when you change its rules.

Choose a starting point

Pick one of these, or invent your own. Each one is a rough starting prompt. You are expected to change it.

Six things AI can become

Thing	Starting prompt	The moment to try
A pinball machine	Act as a working pinball machine. Draw the playfield in ASCII with bumpers, ramps, flippers, the ball, and the score. I control the flippers with LEFT, RIGHT, or BOTH. Simulate the physics between my actions and show several frames before asking for my next move.	“From now on, gravity points to the left.”
An Etch A Sketch	Act as an Etch A Sketch with a 40 by 20 text screen. I control the knobs with UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT followed by a number, or I can describe what I want you to try to draw. Never erase a line unless I say SHAKE. Redraw the whole screen after every action.	“Without lifting the line, turn that rectangle into a house.”
A Rube Goldberg machine	Act as a working Rube Goldberg machine. Draw the whole machine in ASCII. It must obey reasonable physics. I can add ordinary objects by describing where I want them. When I say GO, run the machine and show successive frames.	“It failed. Add something that catches the tennis ball and sends it downward, without changing anything else.”
An ant colony	Act as an ant colony simulator viewed from above. Use ASCII for tunnels, chambers, ants, food, larvae, and the queen. Keep track of food supply, population, and tunnel layout. Every command I give advances the simulation by one day unless I say otherwise.	“It rains extremely hard for three days.” Then: “Give the ants human-level intelligence.”
An X-ray scanner	Act as an imaginary X-ray scanner. I will name an object. Draw its outside in ASCII. Then I can ask you to slice it horizontally or vertically at any point, and you draw a believable cross-section with the important internal parts labeled. Keep the slices consistent with each other.	“There is something rattling inside. Show me the three most likely places to look.” Then: “Scan a lightsaber.”
A tiny computer	Act as a tiny computer with a 32 by 12 character display, 256 bytes of memory, a keyboard, and a simple CPU. Draw the screen and a status line in ASCII. I can use the computer, look at its memory, or tell you to change its hardware or software. Keep its state between turns.	“Write a program that asks my name and greets me.” Then: “Upgrade yourself to 512 bytes of memory.”

If you invent your own, it has to meet the same test as these: it draws itself, it remembers, it takes controls, and it has rules you could change.

Student instructions

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Step 1: Build it and play it.
Start a new conversation with your starting prompt. Use it for at least five turns before changing anything. Save this conversation.
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Step 2: Make it yours.
Change the prompt in at least three specific ways. Add a control it did not have. Add a rule about how it draws or what it must always show. Add something it has to keep track of. Write down each change and why you made it.
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Step 3: Change the rules while it is running.
Do the “moment to try” for your thing, or invent a better one. The point is to change a law of the thing, not just give it a new input. Watch whether it keeps working, and whether the drawing changes to match.
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Step 4: Break it on purpose.
Give it a control or a situation your prompt never mentioned. Something it has to figure out. Notice what it does when it has no rule to follow.
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Step 5: Play the finished version.
Run at least eight turns with your final prompt, including the rules change. Save the conversation.

What to turn in

Your final prompt. The complete text.

Two conversations. The first one, from Step 1, and the finished one, from Step 5.

Your changes. The three changes from Step 2, each with one sentence about why.

A written answer to one question. What exactly was AI pretending to be? Do not answer with the name of the thing. List everything it was doing at once: drawing, remembering, simulating, interpreting your controls, explaining, inventing. Then write a short paragraph about the moment you changed the rules. What happened, and why could it do that?

Your work should show that you understand what a persona can be, not just that you got AI to play a game.

Submitting sample conversations

Follow your teacher’s instructions for sharing a conversation link or copying the text. Include the starting prompt and every turn.