Node-based AI workflow

As I work with ChatGPT and other LLMs, I’ve been thinking about how we’ll interact with AI in the future. We’ll probably keep having the open-ended chat interface, and other systems with more autonomous agents where the LLM sets its own tasks, but I can also see a system made for workflows.

It might be a node-based system where each node has instructions and a list of other nodes through which the LLM can navigate. Where needed it would prompt the user. It would make choices about which node to navigate to next. It would read and write files. Its scope would be finite.

This would exist for processes where you want the LLM to follow the same basic steps. It would be a consistent way to work through a complex process.

For example, one command could start the LLM working through a book-writing process that might run through hundreds of nodes, generating and choosing ideas, recording details in a file, and finishing at the end once it has finished editing the story it wrote.

• STORY DEVELOPMENT
  • CHOOSE CONCEPT
    • Set Constraints
    • List Concepts
    • Develop Rationale
    • Record Concept
  • DESIGN SOCIETY
  • DEFINE ROLES
  • CREATE CHARACTERS
  • PLOT THREADS
  • GENERATE WRITING EXERCISES
• PLAN BOOK
• DRAFT CHAPTERS
• DEVELOPMENTAL EDITS
• COPY EDITS

I’m creating an MVP of the idea using the interactive fiction platform Twine. Once the MVP is ready I will manually copy over instructions from the instruction set as if I were the automated system sending the node instructions to the LLM. When the LLM sends an instruction to move to another node, I will be the one moving on to the next node in the Twine.

Here’s a sample of a single instruction set I sent to ChatGPT and how it responded. (This was for a theoretical task management system.)

ME:
NODE INSTRUCTION: Prompt the user to find out if they need any help choosing a project to focus on, defining a project, defining first tasks, or if they just need you to record those tasks. Depending on their answer, create a summary of your findings and then end with a call to one of the following nodes.

• OPEN NODE [PROJECT FOCUS]
• OPEN NODE [PROJECT DEFINITION]
• OPEN NODE [TASK DEFINITION]
• OPEN NODE [RECORD TASK]

CHATGPT:
Hello! Just trying to gauge where you’re at with your projects. Are you in the process of choosing a project to focus on, or have you already picked one and need help defining it further? Maybe you’re ready to lay out the first tasks, or you already have them clear in your mind and just want me to record them. Can you share what stage you’re at right now?

ME:
I want to edit the draft of the book I wrote last year. I’ve started to reacquaint myself with the story, but I need to figure out how to developmental edits so I can fix the overall structure before I begin to touch the more fine details.

CHATGPT:
Thanks for sharing, Robb. So, to summarize: you’ve written a book draft, and you’re now in the process of revisiting it. Your current objective is to tackle the developmental edits, focusing on refining the overall structure of your story before diving into the finer details. It sounds like you’re needing help in defining the tasks involved in this process.

OPEN NODE [TASK DEFINITION]

This last bit that ChatGPT wrote would be the instruction that tells the system to open the node called TASK DEFINITION. It would pass ChatGPT’s summary on so it could be included in the new node instructions.