Introduction :

Fictional universes have long been an intriguing theme for readers, one of which is the universe of magic. One big reason is the fact that we can experience a lot of events that aren’t possible in the real world. Well, who doesn’t know about the wizarding world, and the legendary Harry Potter. Many movies, games, and accessories have been created in order to connect to it. The craze has reached such a level that there are online and offline communities that discuss the possibilities of each character’s alternate decisions and thought processes, apart from those given in the original novels. And with the launch of the game Hogwarts Legacy, the number of discussions has just grown tremendously. The level of detail and the first-person experience that it delivers are immense! Yet it has some limitations; the universe is limited and pre-written. One can only interact with the objects and characters that are already there. So it is good to assume that at some point it is going to get boring, and that will occur once the players have explored almost everything in that limited world.

AI in the fictional world

The internet is booming with generative AI. People are using it for almost everything. And as expected, even I am using it for understanding and analyzing my ideas, doubts, and problems. One of those was regarding building a fictional character for my story. I gave a prompt mentioning the thoughts I had about a specific fictional character I wanted to build, and the AI suggested some circumstances that could add to its background. This gave me an idea: what if we could ask the AI to build a complete character instead of its backgrounds? And if that is possible, the AI is capable enough to build several characters and even non-human elements. And if we merge this idea with the pre-existing knowledge of the wizarding world, it can create wonders! A twin brother of Harry Potter? A Horcrux that violated the rules of magic and remained hidden? Or perhaps an event in the past — what if Harry’s mother wasn’t killed? The possibilities are endless! With all these thoughts in my mind, I decided to give it a try. This article is about the short experience I had in ChatGPT’s wizarding world.

ChatGPT’s Hogwarts

To initiate an interaction with the wizarding world, I had to make it summarize the whole Harry Potter series at the beginning. That gave better results, as the universe’s details were present in the chat. Then I went forward, explaining that I wanted to introduce a new fictional character into that world. The AI understood it and took information regarding the character, such as name and interests. As I wanted good control over the character and scenes, I decided to start with the prompt about the arrival of an owl with a letter. I was surprised to see the detail of the letter, as it even explained the four symbols of the houses that were present in the seal of Hogwarts. I also interacted with the owl, feeding it some food, to which it responded with a hoot after finishing it. The letter then directed me to answer to this mail by returning another letter to the same owl with my acceptance or rejection of this offer.

And then I was instructed to go to Diagon Alley in London if I chose to go to Hogwarts. Not knowing how to get there, I walked outside my home. The AI took control over here and made me get on a special bus. I suppose it was the flying bus. The bus then went to London and stopped right in front of Diagon Alley, something that was different from the methods of going to Diagon Alley in the books. At this point, the AI became a bit vague, giving me control to head towards any shop that I wanted. But I just mentioned the list of things that I need to buy, and it took me to Ollivander’s shop. But there’s a difference. This shop sells all the basic items for the school of wizardry: notebooks, potion ingredients, cloaks, and even cauldrons. On asking the shopkeeper about the wand, he took out a few of the wands for me, including the one with the Phoenix feather core. I could get good control over the Phoenix feather core wand, so the shopkeeper offered me that.

I got out of the shop after buying all the items. Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you something. I also had a doubt about how I’d pay for these. When I asked AI about this, it said that the School of Wizardry is taking care of all the expenses. Umm . . .Okay, but I was expecting some huge locker in Gringotts for me :-(

Well, now I had everything except one — a pet! and I need one! So I asked AI about this, and Whoosh! Suddenly, a salesman appeared in front of me and guided me to a pet shop. I’m a cat guy, so I decided to go with a cat, and damn! There are some good breeds available. AI told me that there are eight varieties of cats available in the magical world, aPart-2 coming soon …nd I chose a Bengal cat for myself. Then I strolled around the alley to find a tag for my cat. Here the AI took control and led me to a store, where the shopkeeper gave a name to my cat, “Luna”, and handed over a cat tag to me. So now I’m finally all ready for Hogwarts!

Back to Reality

Alright, so this was the brief text-based tour that I got from chatGPT. The experience was pretty good, with some minor issues. One of them is that the AI takes control of the story and puts it in fast-forward mode if my prompts are vague. I’ll try to cover these issues during my next conversation.

Part-2 coming soon …