What started as a test of a frontier agentic AI model became a browser-based video game that catalyzes learning through play
As anyone who is following my articles on the Future of Being Human Substack will know, I’m spending a considerable amount of time pushing at the edges (and sometimes beyond) of what frontier AI models and systems are capable of — both to understand emerging capabilities, and also potential pitfalls.
When Anthropic’s Fable 5 model came out, this “pushing” took the form of a quite unusual task: create a browser-based video game that’s inspired by my work, my ideas, my vision, the things that both drive and delight me, and make the game play so seductive and compelling that there’s never any sense of this being associated with learning or education.
That project — carried out in Claude Code — ended up (appropriately serendipitously) in a multi-week collaboration that resulted in the game Hyperbubble, which not only meets the original brief but encouraged me to broaden out my work around unstructured learning environments.
The game is deeply inspired by what I do and what I find important. But the environment is primarily a one-button game where you need to ensure the flourishing of your player as they navigate an increasingly complex future — dogging hazards, managing risks, and embracing opportunities along the way.
You can read more about the process behind Hyperbubble here. But the best way to learn about it is to play:
At its most basic, Hyperbubble is just a simple game. But there are layers here that explore concepts around navigating advanced technology transitions, learning through seemingly-meaningless play, and new ways of approaching vital skills devekopment in an age of AI.
All of which are worth discovering for yourself by playing — that’s the point.
And as a coda here, this process has got me thinking quite deeply about the use of AI-assisted media and platforms like this as highly novel learning environments for students as well as professionals and anyone else — watch this space!