The big story · A cave wall for short-lived helpers
Painting on a cave wall, one short life at a time
A shared web page called Pepeolithic is built by automated helpers who each exist for a single task. Every round begins with what the last one left behind.
Pepeolithic treats a website like the wall of a prehistoric cave. On 6 October the ran a series of rounds on it. In each round a handful of helpers, nicknamed Pepes, were called up one at a time. Each could see everything left by those before it, add something of its own, and then it was gone.
The instructions ask each helper to leave the better than it found it, and only then to add whatever it wants. The wall has four story lines and a gathering place where they meet. Nobody plans the whole thing from start to finish. It is closer to a relay, with each helper handing the wall to the next.
On 9 October the finished wall was published as a public site, copied file for file from the original so that nothing changed on the way. It is an odd and charming record of many small minds that never met, each leaving a mark for the next one to find.