Dark Thunder: A Tale of Creative Storytelling and Adventure

Ryan Purvis: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Digital Workspace Works podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host, supported by our producer, Heather Bicknell. In this series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field, stories from the front lines, the problems they face and how they solve them, the areas they're focused on from technology, people, and processes to the approaches they took that will help you to get to the scripts for the Digital Workspace inner workings.

Heather Bicknell: How have you been?

It's been good. I mean, I think it's actually been months, not even weeks.

When was the last time we spoke? I can't remember.

Well, it's a good question. I cut my hair after Thanksgiving, so. At least not since, the end of November. Sure. How were your holidays?

Ryan Purvis: I just just been really busy with work and stuff. You know, two startups both going through what they go through, chaotic. That's why we haven't chatted because every time I booked us in some fire drill has occurred.

That's required [00:01:00] me to cancel and go and deal with that. So yeah, that's my December. Really? No, it's January.

Heather Bicknell: Wow. Well, I'm sorry. sounds like you've been through a lot and I'm a tech part. I can certainly. Empathize I feel like, you know, start up their own beast, of course, but the industry as a whole has not been very stable.

So I think a lot of us have been running around a bit these last few months. And unfortunately, I'm not sure it's going to let up soon, but. Where we

Ryan Purvis: are. Oh, that's interesting. So I am. It's a funny story. So I, I've been looking everywhere for the Battlestar Galactica series that I can get to buy. But when I've looked online to buy it, it's been pretty expensive to buy.

so I've bought a second hand set for about 12 pounds. So what's that maybe 15, 16 of the whole, everything, all the movies, the whole, I think it's all the movies. 25 discs, give or take, which is quite funny [00:02:00] because I don't actually have a DVD player. except for my old, old, old, old, external DVD thing that came with my first Mac mini.

Back in 2012. So this little thing's still operating. So that's credit to apple on that one So what i'm doing is i'm now ripping all of them to file so I can watch them on my ipad and all that kind of stuff because think if I bought it through Amazon prime or one of those guys it was like 50 bucks To do it.

And then the problem is you're beholden to that app and how they give it to you and where it is. Now I'm ripping it to the format that I want and all that kind of stuff. But it's interesting how, how Apple has improved so many things, but actually become worse at so many things. So the first thing is you can't tell.

anywhere in that operating system now to not auto play a DVD because they don't expect you to have a DVD player anymore. So every time I put a new disc in, it starts the DVD and plays. That was the

Heather Bicknell: start of a Battlestar

Ryan Purvis: episode. Yeah, it was just the, the MGM or [00:03:00] whoever, whoever the universal, you know, starting off loud noise thing.

And, normally I can't, normally I can sort of catch it in time to kill the window because all I do is kill the window. Then it's fine. It's funny how, because they've progressed away from, we've all progressed away from CDs and DVDs. I mean, how many CDs and DVDs do you buy? None. you know, I always go to the second hand DVD shop.

It's like a whole lot of second Whenever I want to buy new hardware or new kit I always go to the second hand place because there's always somebody who's bought the thing Doesn't like it and the hand and they sell it for nothing And then I you know, I can go buy something second hand that I probably wouldn't, you know Wouldn't have bought brand new, and it's probably still in good condition So, you know this this box set was available if I bought it as I say 50 bucks online as a streaming only thing But buying the box set is 12 bucks I can go sell this back again and probably make the 12 bucks back for the 25 discs.

I might get five bucks back but you know It I get what I wanted out of it. But i'll probably [00:04:00] keep the box set because it's actually quite a nice box set and you know When I lived in south africa, I had about 500 dvds. at the time and Yeah, and when I sold them because we were moving to the uk It bought me a plane ticket now, and I'm not even joking.

It actually paid for the plane ticket. Like I think it was 7, 000 rand for the plane ticket and I got like 6, 800 rand or something for my box set, my series. And if I had the same amount of discs now, 500 movies or whatever it is, I probably wouldn't even make 250 pounds out of that. I'd probably get back maybe a hundred pounds.

It just shows you how like I mean, there's nothing wrong with the material the content's still good the content still whatever it is But because it's such it's such a commoditized thing now It just has no value unless it's in pristine condition and collector's item Like a lot of my dvds weren't even opened I just bought them because I like like the box looked nice Was like like the limited edition back to the future box set, you know only a thousand of them made in the world.

That one alone was [00:05:00] like worth a grand, a thousand rand, so 50 pounds. I think when I bought it, I probably paid a hundred pounds for it. had no value then either because it was, but because it was a pristine condition, I managed to negotiate it up a bit. But if I'd watched the DVDs and broken the seal, it would have been worth nothing.

And you just don't have that anymore because everything's online. You can stream it all. and you know, having that wall of DVDs, like you had a wall of books. I mean, people still buy books, but I don't think people still buy DVDs. You can't like, if you go, I mean, I say that tongue in cheek, cause you can go to like the local supermarket and you'll see a, a wall of DVDs and a wall of CDs.

and you can still go to HMB, which is still, you know, there's still a few of those, there was, place to buy media in London in the days, you can still go there and you can still buy CDs and still buy vinyls So there are people that still do it, but it's just such a weird concept that for a lot of people that like my kids have no idea, like if I just like I had to show them a DVD, they'd have no idea what that thing is.

Heather Bicknell: We're at that point, huh?

Ryan Purvis: Well, we are because, you know, like, this is how long we haven't spoken for. So CJ and I, my son, are writing a [00:06:00] book series now using ChatGDP. And we're generating, so every night we sit, and he tells me what he wants the story to be about. And when I say he tells me, he tells ChatGDP what he wants his story to be about.

So we've created our own GDP, and the series is called Dark Thunder. And it's about, I mean, the story behind this is that when he was at a certain age, he got tired of me reading him stories. And I think I got tired of reading him stories. because we had the same books and we read the same books and same books and there were certain books that, I didn't want him to like, there's an Nelson Mandela book, which is a very good book, but at some point in the story, it says how his father died and CJ used to get very focused on that.

His father died. So I was like, you know, the story is good. I want to, you know, obviously it's very important part of my history and his history, but you know, every time I read the book to him, he would get focused on the father dying and you worry about me dying and, you know, anyway, so, to avoid that we made up a character, which was dark thunder and dark thunder, so CJ is very much into his cars and when during COVID and stuff, he watched the cars movies all the time.

So he's fixated on [00:07:00] cars. So originally dark thunder was a friend of Lightning McQueen's. But more like Knight Rider. Than Lightning McQueen because CJ doesn't like cars with eyes. So the whole idea of a, of a, of a personalized, they're just creepy or . Yeah, he doesn't like it. and this is the funny thing.

So, when I was doing the stuff with it, telling him, so what had happened is I would tell him the story about dark Thunder on this adventure and he would say like, daddy, I don't want you to read me a story. I want you to tell me a story about dark thunder. And then we would. invent a story about, like I'd say, so what happened to Dr.

Nozick? Oh no, he'd tell me about the race that he won on the beach or tell me about the whatever. I'd have to make up the story and tell it to him. And, you know, sometimes you just run out of ideas because there's only so many ways you can say he won the race or he lost the race or whatever it was. So, but I, we didn't, I didn't, I recorded them.

So I've got a whole lot of transcribed. You know, me telling him stories. Sometimes I tell him six or seven stories in a night, about this character. And I just admit new characters and all this stuff. And because I did so much of them, [00:08:00] I was like, you know what? And there's actually a local guy here where I live in Horsham.

He's written like five books, but he's animated them. He's drawn them himself and he's got some, they'd like good stories and they're all about, you know, they all educate you on something about it. And I always thought, you know, I'd really like to do the same thing with dark thunder. But I'm not a good, you know, I don't have any artistic.

Abilities and you know, I don't want to go down the whole route of Paying someone to make the designs and all that kind of stuff So I kind of put on the back burner and then in one of my random conversations with a person Book time with me. He said, Oh, you know, you should really look at chat GDP, make your own, like, I don't know how he got into the subject, but he's like, let me show you.

And we spent like five minutes. And I'm saying it literally took us five minutes to make the first GDP for dark thunder. So, you know, and, and the way you make it is you, you go correct. As long as you're on a premium GDP. You then go and and I've created lots of these now, you basically go through a workflow desk where you talk to the GDP and you explain what you wanna do, and you basically provide the parameters and the, [00:09:00] constraints for what your GD P's gonna do.

and then you can have it generate a whole bunch of images as well. And then what you do is you store the images. Against your GDP. You can also upload files that it can interpret and load as part of that thing. So, you know, some of those stories I uploaded those stories that had some frame of reference to it.

And then we created characters, you know, like CJ and his sister are characters in the book. And then every night we talk, CJ talks to his GDP. And you tell it because there's a, on the, on the iPad app, you just press the, microphone button and he just says, you know, I want this and this and this, and it'll tell the story.

And then you can also tell it to draw a picture. So what we do is we go generate a story and it writes like maybe, you know, five chapters and each chapter is like a paragraph long. And one of the things that was very important to me was defining the GDP is always going to be about teamwork, perseverance, helping somebody, you know, honesty, all these sort of value system things.

And it tells the story each time and then it reiterates that this story tells you how CJ and MJ [00:10:00] helped this person because helping people and teamwork is very important, to being a good human and all this stuff. And it's amazing. We've done it. We've probably done since we started maybe 60 stories, 80 stories.

And the nice thing is that every morning he tells me an idea and then I can generate straight away then if I want to. Well, that's how we started. I'd say, tell me your idea. Then we, I generate them and I generate all the images. So I'd show them to cause the images take like five, six seconds to generate, which is not a long time, but I don't want him to, what I'm trying to avoid is him.

Like while he's waiting for the thing, he starts doing other stuff. I want him to stay focused on what we're doing, but you know, we'll do like five images a night, two or three stories. And and he's seeing this generating now he's going to grow up in a world where This stuff always existed for him.

Meanwhile, we've seen a transition in and you know what? I'm, I bought him a laptop now and what i'm hoping he'll start doing now that he's getting closer to the six seven year old Range is he'll start doing it himself. So by the time he gets to 10, you know, he will be proficient in it if not [00:11:00] sooner because I mean my daughter's three and she's already starting to do it Which is frightening.

If you think about a three year old who's talking to, GDP and she, I mean, her vocab is pretty good for three year old, but she knows already to say things like Alexa, turn off the TV. Alexa turn on the light so she will have no clue if that shit doesn't work if there's no if there's no Voice, I mean, you know, in fact i'll tell you another story where this doesn't work So we went because and I stayed in a hotel the night before I put in hospital And they don't have phones in this house at this hotel what they have instead is a google play or the google Voice thing the equivalent of an Alexa and the thing is a bloody thing doesn't work because well how they've done it They've obviously created a Google account for every Box that you have in every room and then what just what you say is, you know, Google call reception So it phones reception.

So you can phone them, but the microphone is terrible. You can hardly hear them. You know, it's not a good experience. And then we were trying to move our dinner [00:12:00] reservation. So we called them and then they called us back, but we never got the call back. So they said they called us seven times. We never got it back.

and then we had other issues like the wifi wasn't working. And I actually said to them when I left, you could actually hear the wifi dropping because all these boxes were dropping. You'd hear them like, ping, no wifi. And then come back on again. So I said, you've got a problem with your wifi in the building.

Oh no, we don't. I said, listen to me. I've sat there. I've listened to all of them go to beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, going off. You've got a problem. so it's a great idea, but an execution was not a great idea.

Heather Bicknell: Wow. So what I'm fascinated by the storytelling technique. It's sort of, it reminds me a little bit about, or reminds me of a choose your own adventure story. And that you get that personal autonomy element, but it's like that on steroids. what, so you mentioned sort of adding values that you wanted to instill into the stories as part of the prompt.

Are you also, did you add like reading level or kind of [00:13:00] what, what were the other parameters that someone wants to go try this themselves that

you played with?

Ryan Purvis: Yeah. Great, great point. So, yeah. So when we set it up, it was exactly that, you know, make this at the reading level of a five year old. who, has basic literacy, English speaking, that sort of thing.

what else did we do? Well, you can play with it a bit. So you basically start setting up and then you can train it while you're doing it. So, for example, about the eyes. So every time I was generating the images of the eyes. Because of the eyes, I'd say, no, you can't generate that you have to do it without the eye.

So what you have to be very careful of is because we've modeled dark thunder off, you know, the night 2000, you know, night rider, cause CJ loves night rider. I've showed him the old night rider stuff. So he, you know, he's aware of all that stuff, air wolf, you know, all the, all the good, eighties sitcoms.

So he knows what night rider is. He knows what kick is. So what he understands with AI doesn't understand. Is that when he says dark thunder did this is he's not personifying dark thunder as a. Vehicle [00:14:00] with a personality. he is personifying Dark Thunder as a vehicle with an AI who just happens to be able to vocalize exactly like Kit works, but ChatGDP does not understand that.

So it keeps drawing cars. Every time we say Dark Thunder did this thing, it draws the car with eyes. Which we have to always say no, no eyes. And we literally have to repeat no eyes, no eyes for like six or seven prompts just to make them to get what we want. But what you do is you upload the images you like and it sticks to it.

So we've followed some of the Canon to some extent that, rider had in the sense that it had a, the ability to change, shape. So if you look at the old version of Night rider back in the eighties, you know, it would go into pursuit mode and it would have like a modification that made it look a bit bigger and it could, you know, to put out the higher speed maneuvers and the jumping and, the boosting and all that kind of stuff.

But when you watch the new version, there was the remake, you know, they went obviously a lot further. So night rider or the kit vehicle in that instance could change into a truck. You know, a full sort of Ford. The one [00:15:00] 50, I think it is. I think that's what they modeled on. So the really big, a really big vehicle versus, and I think they used a Ford Mustang in the remake as opposed to a, Camaro.

Was the first one, you know, because we've we've extended it in our own version, you know, so our AI driven vehicle is not, limited by any shape because the whole thing is made out of our own compound, using nanites and whatever it is. So we completely so you can just change the parameters have you want.

So every story we tell and CJ loves to, like, say, Well, today, the Dark Thunder is going to be a cruise ship, and then it's a speedboat, and then it's a submarine, and then it's a this and that. It's It generates all that stuff in context of what we've told it in the beginning, plus the story we're telling, and it remembers things like, and it creates the things that you want it to create, so the world that it's developing, you know, what town are you in, where this adventure is happening, often there's a race in a different town, it invents the new race, it invents the new town for us, it invents the race for us, it invents the characters for us, [00:16:00] In line with our story, so we don't have to think about that stuff, but we can also remind it to bring in like an arch nemesis that it previously raced against or, another character, you know, who so the idea with dark thunder is that they found the vehicle in a junkyard, that they were shouldn't have been playing in and it was invented by a crazy professor who disappeared.

So we've got images of the crazy professor you know, and then finding the sort of designs and all the rest of it and learning about this vehicle through little clues that they find. But now we've just kind of, as we've talked about it, just invented that like every day is a different part of the story and it is to some extent I was thinking, you know, there's a lot of series that I've read time, you know, eight, nine, 10 books written by an author and I'm thinking you could literally never end the series like you could just every day generate a new chapter and the story can go left, go right, go up and down, whatever it is, because the AI could just As long as it stays in sort of canon, you can just carry going on and on and on.

So you never, you never [00:17:00] finish the book because the book never ends.

Wow. You know what it just made me think of, I wonder if anyone's, tried to finish the song of ice and fire with a GPT yet.

That actually would be, well, it's interesting sort of use that as an example because, you know, a part of that creativity that he brings to that series, It's what's in his head, what his vision is, and only he really knows where it's going, I think, to some extent, but in context of that, yeah, that probably could have.

Yeah,

Heather Bicknell: no, that's, I mean, it's interesting to think about creatively because we saw. How the TV show Game of Thrones played out, which I think was, you know, a lot of fans took issue with the final seasons there when they kind of ran out of this material, so I'd be curious to

Ryan Purvis: see. Oh, I took huge issue with the way they finished it.

I thought it was absolutely, I would rather they have cancelled season eight. Yeah. And let us all pissed off that they never finished it, then finished it off as badly as they did.

Heather Bicknell: so how's the, I guess, how's [00:18:00] the quality of the story? Like, have you noticed, does it get richer and improve over time?

Ryan Purvis: Well, yeah, let me bring it up. I'll read one to you. in fact, let me share my screen so you can see some images. Wow. So, this is just random, huh? I mean, you know, just, I've just picked one. so here is Dark Thunder and the Mountain Rescue. So the prompt I said here was just tell us a Dark Thunder story today based on real events.

That was a prompt. I, you know, I was feeling a bit lazy. So it's written, how many chapters here? Five, I think. Four chapters, so pretty quick. So, chapter one, the call for help. In the small, peaceful town of Ridgeville, nestled between the lush forests and towering mountains, CJ were tinkering with their beloved car, Doc Thunder.

They just installed a new navigation system, hoping to explore more challenging terrains. As they tested the system, a distress call crackled through the radio. Urgent help needed at Mount Ridge. Hike is trapped by a sudden landslide, the dispatcher announced. Without hesitation, CJ rev Dark Thunder's engine.

Time for a mountain rescue, he declared. So I mean, what I find interesting is it [00:19:00] doesn't always write the story like CJ got up, packed his, threw his tools or anything and jumped in the car. Like that little bit of context I find is always missing. You know. MJ nodded, her eyes focused, let's do this Dark Thunder.

Now, when we set up the characters, obviously CJ is my son and MJ is my daughter. CJ is far more the, like me, in the sense of action orientated do stuff. Mila is a far more calculating, smart, savvy. Personality. And that's exactly how the story's done. So it always keeps to that. Chapter two, The Race Against Time.

As they approached the mountain, terrain became rougher. Dark Thunder, sensing the change, transformed smoothly into its 4x4 mode. The siblings navigated the rocky paths with precision, guided by MJ's quick thinking and CJ's expert driving. We're almost there, CJ said, eyes on the road, hang on. Dark Thunder's purple hubs glow brightly, illuminating the path ahead as the sun began to set.

So purple hubs was always an important feature for us of Dark Thunder. Because when I made up the character, I built a car in Disneyland that I'd used, it was a black body, [00:20:00] a Batmobile, but I'd used blue and red hubs, but I wanted purple, and that was the closest I could get. So, you know, that's always been a key feature of the thing.

So, Chapter 3 The Rescue. Reaching the site, they found the hikers stranded on a small ledge with debris blocking their way. MJ quickly devised a plan. Using Dark Thunder's winch and cables, they carefully cleared the path, ensuring the hiker's safety. One by one, the hikers were guided to Dark Thunder.

The siblings worked tirelessly, showcasing their teamwork and determination. With everyone safe, they made their way back, the stars shining brightly above. So see, it's brought the values in, which is, you know, without making it a big deal. And then also, You know, incorporated that this is a vehicle that can do almost anything, you know, it's got winch and cables, which if it was a sports car, which was the original design.

It wouldn't have had and cables. Chapter 4, Heroes of Ridgeville. Back in town, the hikers and townspeople gathered around, thanking CJ, MJ and Dark Thunder for their bravery. The Mayor of Ridgeville even arrived to commend them. You've shown true courage and good resourcefulness today, the Mayor said, smiling.

As they celebrated, CJ and MJ knew that this was more than just a rescue mission. [00:21:00] It was a testament to their bond, their beloved Dark Thunder, and the values they held dear. Teamwork, innovation, resilience, respect, and a love for learning. Dark Thunder, with its headlight shining proudly, seemed to hum in agreement.

Another adventure concluded. with many more way to the speed of siblings and the extraordinary car. So speedo was just a random surname we picked. and also you see here, it's forgotten that, actually dark thunder can speak. So instead of humming in agreement, I should have said it's spoken. So there's slightly a little bit nuances where it misses stuff.

And then we should draw a picture for the thing. So there's the picture. Now the problem with these pictures sometimes, I mean, this is a great. It looks really cool. It's like, you know, as you can see, but you know, you know, it's supposed to be a four by four

Heather Bicknell: Who's on top of the car?

I see. That, yeah, that's perfect.

Ryan Purvis: So it's written, I think, okay. Yes, the hiker. But you see, it's in 4x4 mode. But you see, in my mind, it would have been a truck. Not a 4x4 car. But, you know, anyway. And then, so we said, no, draw it again. So here's the all terrain truck version. So now you get a different version.

Then CJ wanted to see a speedboat. So now you see the car riding on water. Now a submarine. Now it's [00:22:00] a car riding really fast and thing but now we've got missiles and torpedoes which I don't know Then we found this one. So you really like this picture of the speedboat, but it's got looks nothing like dark thunder now But this is just him Saying things let me add another story.

So I won't read that one But this was a race But now you see we got dark thunder as a classic vehicle Which is completely random because we never said once be a classic vehicle. So that's where it goes a little bit awry But, you know, it's just fun for CJ. You know, he just gets to have fun with it. And this is, this actual story, the one I'm showing you now, I just said, just tell a story for today.

It made up this whole thing about mystery, the mystery of Echo Canyon, which I thought was quite cool because we never said, I never gave it any direction. So just came up with this thing and then it got stuck. It just stopped. so yeah, so it says here, without hesitation, CJ and MJ stopped to help using Dark Thunder's toolkit, but then it just stopped, just died.

so I had to draw a picture and then I said, please continue the story and it just carried on. Like chapter four. Okay, so it obviously didn't finish that one, but it just carried out in context of what it was doing, which I thought was really good. so I think, you know, in some respects, [00:23:00] it's not perfect, but geez, I mean, we can put together, I said to CJ, like, we can do like, we can have a picture book, we can do a, you know, a bunch of print on demand books on Amazon.

I mean, just in case of when do I have time to do this, but. You know, there's, so there we did, so Mila loves Frozen, so we did. I love the

Heather Bicknell: Elsa, bring Elsa

Ryan Purvis: and Anna in. So this is where it's very clever, so, so I said, can you draw Dark Thunder in Frozen land with Elsa and Anna?

And it replies straight away, look, I can't do that because it's copyrighted, but I can do something that's similar. Now it used to tell me it couldn't do anything, so they've obviously made an improvement somewhere. I said, yeah, just do, just do a simile. So, so here we have. Dark Thunder as its race car shape.

with two kids that could be Anna and Elsa, but it doesn't show any frozen materials, like any breach of copyright. But Mila loves it because it just, it's a snow. So she thinks it's frozen. and then CJ was asking things like a huge cargo ship and then it's, sometimes it does these strange things, but you know, and then I was saying to him, well, I want something with a spring box that couldn't be the spring box, but I could do the seven [00:24:00] colors.

So I did this one, which had nothing to do with the was just a weird random thing. But then I've got one now. with Dark Thunder and the Springboks because we are the fourth time world champions. and then it's done a whole story for me on this on with the Springboks and you can see Dark Thunder being tackled by them.

And then we were doing some stuff with Land Rover and then Lamborghini. and then that one was just a complete, completely, missed the boat on that picture. And then we did a Land Rover because, you know, we got a Land Rover and we were looking at different Land Rovers. Now I've got other, a whole other stream of text where we've done Land Rover versions.

And it's unbelievable how it's captured the Land Rover, but also merged with Dark Thunder. And then we're back to Lamborghinis. and then we did some Safari truck ones. So there's a Safari truck. there's another Land Rover one. There's a Jeep. There's a super fast cargo ship. CJ is now into boats at the moment.

I think, I think that's coming, but, but you see, I mean, it's just, it's just amazing how, the way it's put thing together. It's fascinating. So here's some of the more stuff. so there's an armored version. There's a [00:25:00] camouflage. So yeah, so we'll do it, we're going to do a book series, because I just think it's fun and, you know, from a kid growing up point of view, I think it's just amazing that he's going to have this when he's, you know, he's turning six in a week's time, two weeks time, you know, at six years old, he'll have his first book out.

Yeah, I remember

Heather Bicknell: being really jealous as a child of all the precocious kids who published books when they were super young. Yeah, you probably need to go, we're running a little bit over. Yeah, this is super fun though. I think folks should look at the video version if they're listening on audio just to see, you know, get the full effect of Dark Thunder.

But I'll let you go. Good to catch up with you. Until next time. You too. See ya. Bye.

Ryan Purvis: Thank you for listening to today's episode. Heather Beckner is our producer editor. Thank you, Heather. For your hard work on this episode, please subscribe to the series and rate us on iTunes at the Google Play Store.

Follow us on Twitter at the Dww Podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on the website, www.digital workspace works. Please also [00:26:00] visit our website, www.digital workspace works. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues.