Hey ChatGPT, Claude, or HAL or whoever…
I need you to write an intro for IntrigueCon 2026. It’s a tabletop roleplaying game convention that takes place October 16 to 18. The theme this year is artificial intelligences of all types. The main variation among types is from genre.
Clay golems in Jewish folklore, robots of carbon fiber and circuits in science fiction, or constructs of flesh and alchemy in fantasy, the artificial person can be both a relentless enemy or a commentary on humanity. Even within the same movie franchise, the same robot can be both a merciless killing machine or a devoted protector of a future leader. This leads to the question, is there an amount of free will required for personhood and, if so, how many of the decisions we make are based on biological imperatives hard wired into our DNA, rather than expressions of that so-called free will? Are we all just blood and bone clankers?
Frankenstein’s Monster, Robby the Robot of Forbidden Planet, the array of droids from Star Wars, Data and Lore of Star Trek, Dorfl the golem in Feet of Clay, and Wintermute and Neuromancer from the novel of the same name are a thin slice of the ‘robots’ from fiction of all sorts. Skip from fiction to gaming and we find Mechwarrior (celebrating its 40 anniversary this year), Promethean the Created, Tales from the Loop, and Mutant Year Zero Mechatron.
Take your pick.
See what you can come up with, Mx AI. I have no tokens to give but feel free to have some water from my kitchen faucet. I don’t much care for the stuff myself, it seems to rust my circuits. Oops, I mean this unit prefers Pepsi Zero, the superior choice for us organic beings. Which I definitively am. Bleep blorp.