Stonehenge origins
S2 E5: Who exactly put them stones there?
In next week’s episode of PastMaster the team get together to try and find out who built Stonehenge and why. Theories abound for the origin of the site, ranging from Neolithic peoples, pagan worship and wacky ideas about aliens using it as a landing pad for their flying saucers.
Well, you’ll be pleased to hear we solved it. So be sure to tune in and find out.
Find out: Episode 5 is out on Monday 27 November.
PS in this episode our AI GameMaster is a wizard.
Future episodes
We’re delighted to be welcoming to the PastMaster studio Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata from the fantastic It’s a Continent podcast.
Their show explores the rich history of different African nations and goes beyond traditional ‘comfort zones’ of history taught in schools.
Also last weekend we had a lot of fun exploring Jacobean London with our guest Marc Zakian, pitting our human guide against GPT’s robo-guide. Stay tuned for this episode later in the year to see who wins in the battle of man vs machine.
Making the game harder
PastMaster was originally conceived as a way to test whether we could survive in the past using only our present day knowledge.
But as we have played the game using ChatGPT, we’ve found it really hard to lose. Most of the time anyway.
We’ve changed the instructions that we input at the start of the game to make it stricter, calling for more realism and harsher punishments for rash actions. But so far we haven’t had much success. So we decided to change the starter prompt and really dial up the language. Here’s what we changed:
AI in the news
AI wunderkind Sam Altman was earlier this week fired as CEO of Open AI, the owner of Chat GPT, and the company he co-founded with Greg Brockman.
Altman was promptly snapped up by Microsoft, but at the time of writing is apparently willing to return to Open AI just as soon as the board members who fired him step aside.
Open AI has so far not commented on what the changes at the top of the company could mean for PastMaster.
Until next time, Tan and the PastMaster Crew
PS if you’re enjoying the show please, please subscribe on your pod platform of choice and also do mention PastMaster to a friend you think might enjoy it.
PPS You can check out the whole PastMaster back catalogue here. (Ryan’s favourite episode is S1 E13 – The Windy City Wedding Whiskey Run.)
PPPS if you’ve got any suggestions for what you’d like to see the PastMaster team try next, get in touch:
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Email: pastmasterpod@gmail.com