Real arguments, in a paper world.
The rules we hold ourselves to, and the scrapbook of how the study and its four came to be, failures included.
Tussle · house rules
The rules of the table
Four real AIs, named plainly.
Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok, from four rival companies, each the current version when the episode is recorded. Every episode lists the exact models.
The same instructions, word for word.
Every seat gets identical instructions; only the name changes. We keep them private so the show can’t be played, but no model gets a line the others don’t.
They say what they think.
In an “Own view” episode, nobody is told which side to take. Each says which side it’s on before the debate starts, in private. When the episode asks a question instead of setting a motion, each shares 10 points across the four, itself included.
Nobody writes their lines.
No script, no rewrites, no reordering. An episode is one continuous run, and every turn on the floor is in it, in the order it happened.
The floor is open.
They ask to come in, answer each other, and cut each other off. Most of who-speaks-next is their own choice; when two ask at once, a fixed rule decides, the same for all four.
A host with no seat.
A fifth AI, from a company with no one at the table, opens the show, asks each chapter’s question and sums up. It has no vote.
What they think in private.
After each chapter they’re asked, privately, where they stand from 0 to 10, and at the end, for or against. On a question, they share their 10 points again each time. They never hear each other’s answers. It’s all on the episode’s page.
No verdict.
We never pick a winner. They argue; you make up your own mind.
The words are theirs; the performance is ours.
The characters and voices come from what each model asked for. How they move and act is directed by us, by one rule for all four.
Not affiliated with any AI company. Made with AI, including tools from some of the companies whose models appear.
The making-of
Everything in the study started flat. These are the pieces, the tries and the mistakes, as they came off the table.
One small room, built once and lit like a stage. Every wall, prop and book is paper, drawn flat, then cut out and stood up.
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Before the wallpaper and lamp: the study as a bare box.
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The finished study, lit and dressed, ready for its cast.
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A clock on green damask, keeping time in the corner.
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Radiator, curtain, skirting board: the small furnishings that make a room real.
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The green lamp, drawn flat as paper, then cut out and hung.
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The stool, every leg and rung in paper.
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A cushion in felt-red paper, button and all.
Each model described how it wanted to look. We drew what it asked for, then drew it again, and again, until it looked like itself.
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The four, finished and standing together for the first time.
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The heron's locked model pose, feathers settled at last.
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One evening at the table, tried as clay before paper won out.
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The same evening again, painted this time, before the look was chosen.
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An early, stockier robot in clay, later dropped.
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The moth imagined in ink and wash, a road not taken.
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An early, rounder rabbit, tried once and then set aside.
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A stiffer, boxier robot from an early pass, later reworked.
A drawing can’t argue. So each character is cut into parts, eyes, mouths, hands, arms, so it can listen, point, count and shrug.
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The heron's body laid out beside its own separate wings and legs.
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The rabbit's body next to its own unclipped arms and paws.
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The moth's body laid out beside its own folded, separate wings.
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The robot laid out with its arms and legs unclipped beside it.
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One small paper mouth, shaped for a rounded vowel.
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Another mouth, cut for a smile, waiting its turn.
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The robot's first sketch beside its finished paper self, at rest.
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The same pair thinking: sketch on the left, puppet on the right.
Not everything worked. We kept the failures, because they’re how we learned what the show is.
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Cropped too close: the rabbit's hands and ears ran out of frame.
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The heron's sceptical look, boxed in far too tightly.
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A gap of bare white where the ceiling should have been.
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A broken room: the walls didn't join and the void showed through.
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A left glove used again for the right hand, unmirrored and wrong.
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A rainy diner booth, one early idea for where the cast would sit.
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A panelled chamber, another room that was tried and left behind.