Book Bingo Generator

One of the greatest challenges for any reader is deciding which book to read next. My own list of books to be read (TBR) is large and unwieldy, often resulting in decision paralysis as I try to filter through it and choose a book. Bingo card challenges come to the rescue by providing prompts that narrow down the possibilities, making the decision more manageable.

TLDR: Generate a bingo card now

Finding the right bingo card challenge that fits your reading preferences is not always easy, and building your own unique bingo card challenge can require time and creativity that are not always readily available.

Enter generative AI. Over the past couple of years, generative models like ChatGPT, Llama, and Stable Diffusion have become quite proficient at generating text and images for a variety of applications. Many people are turning to generative AI to help them brainstorm ideas, engage in conversations with their favorite fictional characters, visualize their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and more. I wondered, could this latest tech craze be used to support my book bingo habit by generating book challenges and maybe even the bingo cards themselves?

Initially, I experimented with creating a GPT Book Bingo generator. This worked surprisingly well, with GPT happily generating book bingo cards for me and updating them as needed. However, a major downside was that GPTs require a ChatGPT Plus subscription to use, making it inaccessible to a large portion of the population.

As an alternative, I began exploring how to create a book bingo generator using only free and open-source AI generation tools. Unfortunately, this was not as straightforward to set up as a GPT, but the result is a bingo card generator that can be used by anyone with an internet connection, without incurring API costs or subscription fees.

The bingo card generator is powered by AI Horde, a crowdsourced distributed cluster hosting various generative AI models. The app operates entirely on the client side, where it sends a prompt to the AI Horde requesting 24 bingo challenges. A model within the AI Horde processes this request and generates a response. The response is then checked to ensure its suitability for generating the bingo card. If the response is invalid, a new request is sent to the model for another attempt. If all goes smoothly, a bingo card is eventually displayed.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be releasing a few behind-the-scenes blog posts explaining how the Book Bingo Generator was created. Perhaps this can assist others who are interested in harnessing AI generator technology in open and accessible ways.