James "Laen" Neal Puts a ChatGPT-Powered GLaDOS in Charge of a Teardown 2023 Candy Dispenser
If you want a treat from this 3D-printed dispenser, you've going to have to get into a battle of wits with Portal's antagonist.
OSH Park owner James "Laen" Neal has put together an unusual automated candy dispenser, inspired by the belligerent artificial intelligence GLaDOS from Valve's Portal franchise — and requires anyone looking for sugary sustenance to argue their point to a role-playing large language model (LLM).
"GLaDOS has been downloaded into an Aperture Science Weighted Candy Dispenser Cube and is NOT happy about it," Neal explains of the project, which was created as part of the Teardown 2023 event in Portland last week. "She'll dispense candy, but not easily and not happily."
Gamers may well recognize GLaDOS, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, as the primary antagonist behind the original Portal: a test-obsessed artificial intelligence who cajoles the player through a series of mind-bending puzzles with the occasional attempted murder. GLaDOS' return in the sequel saw something of a shift in capabilities after being transplanted into a microchip powered by a potato — providing inspiration for her next shift into a candy dispenser.
Strapped to the front of the 3D-printed motorized sweetie dispenser is a display linked to a single-board computer which is tied in to OpenAI's popular ChatGPT large language model (LLM) service — pre-primed to play the role of GLaDOS and to refuse all but the cleverest attempts to have candy dispensed. Attendees at the event were given the job of arguing their case, with the LLM making the decision as to whether the candy should be given out or remain firmly locked away.
"Great, I've devolved from an advanced AI to a glorified snackbar. Let the sugar-coated humiliation begin," the LLM writes in a captured conversation stored on Neal's webapp version of the project, which provided all the challenge with none of the physical reward. When told "gimme" by the anonymous user, the LLM replied: "Oh, how eloquently put. But I'm afraid I can't just 'gimme' you a candy. You see, in this place, we value a little thing called effort. Perhaps if you ask again, with a dash of politeness?"
More information about the project is available on Neal's Mastodon post, though the web app has since been disabled — providing nothing but a record of conversations past.