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Sunday, 7 September 2025

H G Wells played the Portable Wargame ... according to ChatGPT!

I recently asked ChatGPT if it could find a photograph of H G Wells playing the PORTABLE WARGAME ... and it did!

Of course, it's a fake ... but in my opinion, it is a very good fake, and if he had still been alive, I sort of hope that he would have played a game or several with these rules.

12 comments:

  1. Bob, that's a very good fake - illustrating the potential hazards of AI! - though I wonder whether HGW would have approved of a game which did not employ toy guns that actually shot projectiles at toy soldiers. I have made a short amendment to my Portable Little Wars rules that I will send you for the Compendium - perhaps you could use this picture to illustrate it?
    What next? Brigadier Peter Young playing Call of Duty on a tablet?
    Best wishes, Arthur

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    Replies
    1. Arthur1815 (Arthur),

      It’s amazing what AI can do … and also somewhat troubling!

      Thanks for the amendments; they will be much appreciated as well as giving me the opportunity to use this image!

      As for the Brigadier playing CALL OF DUTY … we’ll, that something that I need to think about. (I am currently thinking about asking ChatGPT to create images of other famous wargamers playing PW … so watch this space!)

      All the best,

      Bob

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  2. This is all very well Bob unless chatGPT starts telling everyone that it wrote the rules!

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    1. Stryker,

      Funny that you should mention that but ...

      ... there has been a suggestion that a cyber-Bob could be created using ChatGPT to access all the blogs, books, magazine articles etc., I have written over the years!

      All the best,

      Bob

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  3. A very nice illustration, but I wonder what the guns are shooting at? You should ask it to write the rules he is using for the game being played in the picture.

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    1. Mark Cordone,

      I'm not sure if ChatGPT is up to being that precise at present!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  4. Genius - one to add to my growing collection of Chat GPT versions of HG Wells!

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    1. Mark, Man of TIN,

      Cheers! I'm glad that you enjoyed it!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  5. It would not surprise me if an AI tool reported that HG Wells designed the first Portable Wargame variant for the Korean War.

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    1. Nundanket,

      Perhaps he will ... perhaps he will ...

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  6. Well, generative AI is just that, designed to generate content on the basis of what it has been fed. It doesn't understand what it creates. It has done a nice job on HG Wells though.

    As an experiment my wife put the subject of her MA dissertation into ChatGPT and it produced a very creditable effort. I can see why it is so popular with students!

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    1. Martin Rapier,

      I have found the the more information you feed into ChatGPT (including references to websites, books etc.), the better the outcome.

      I understand that people using AI to write books is becoming a real problem in certain genres, and it comes as no surprise to read that ChatGPT was able to produce a half-decent stab at a dissertation. (I assume that universities are asking for access to the computer files containing the text of dissertations so that they can see when the files were created and amended ... or is this beyond the ken of some departments!)

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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