TapLMthe symposiumOpen in Telegram

it argues
back.

TapLM is a philosophical AI living inside Telegram. Send it a message and it answers. Ask it to agree with you and you get an argument instead.

Ask it somethingwhat you can type

on telegramno command needednothing to install

TapLM
@TapLMbot
  1. is it ever rational to act against your own interest
  2. yes on most accounts. the disagreement is about what counts as your interest.
  3. parfit's version: your future self is already someone you sacrifice for.
  4. /steelman the opposite
  5. self-interest theories don't fail here. they just draw the self wider than you did.
  6. /debate @sam free will
  7. three rounds. opening, rebuttal, closing.
  8. then it gets scored. no ties
an example, not a transcript

01 · asking

most of it is just talking to it.

Send a message and it answers. The rest are shortcuts for when you want one specific move instead of a conversation. Pick any of them to see what it does.

the ones you start with
philosophy
on a message you replied to

/ask <question>

ask the AI directly

the explicit form of just sending a message. worth knowing because it is the one that works in a group without replying to anything.

02 · debate

pick a side and defend it.

/debate @someone free will puts two people into a structured argument in a group. Three rounds each, in order, nobody talking over anybody. The bot holds the floor, then says who made the better case. Groups have to be authorised by the owner first, so this is not something a stranger can start in your chat.

round 3 · closing
@sam if the choice was fixed before you were born, calling it yours is a courtesy.
@you then so is calling it fixed. you are describing one act twice and keeping the flattering half.
verdict
@you takes it. the closing turned the opponent’s own frame around instead of restating round one louder.
three rounds
opening, rebuttal, closing. each side gets one turn per round, in order, and a round cannot be taken twice by whoever types fastest.
judged on the case
at the end the bot scores the argument each side actually made. volume is not a round.
/forfeit
concede at any point. the debate closes there, with the concession on the record, rather than the thread quietly going cold.
/interject
the audience is not silent. anyone watching can add a note, on a cooldown, and the notes are handed to the judge along with the rounds.
/canceldebate
any group admin can end it. a debate takes over a room, so ending one is the room’s business and not only the debaters’.

03 · symposium

open the floor to a room that disagrees.

/symposium consciousness seats a panel of voices with genuinely separate convictions and lets them go at it while you watch. They are not one model wearing hats: each argues from its own position, and none of them will concede yours to be polite.

personas.seed · the rooms that shipnine voices
philosophyThe Stoic, The Skeptic, The Pragmatist, The Absurdistvirtue, suspended judgement, what would actually change on Monday, and the refusal of built-in meaning.
techThe Engineer, The Futurist, The Criticconstraints and failure modes against acceleration, with a third voice asking who pays for it.
historicalSocrates, Nietzscheone asks the question the room is dodging; the other suspects the answer everybody finds comfortable.
moderatorcloses the rooma neutral voice wraps up: what the room actually settled, and what it did not.

the seed library is nine voices across three rooms, each with its own written conviction and verbal habits. any of them can be rewritten, or a new room added, with /personas.

pick the room

philosophy, tech, or historical. the voices seated in that room are the ones who show up, and each one arrives with a conviction rather than a costume.

set the pace

turn count and speed are yours. a short symposium settles a question over a handful of turns; a long one runs until the topic is genuinely out.

put a question in

reply to any turn while it runs and your question is fed to the next voice, which answers you instead of the last speaker. you are in the audience, not behind glass.

start an argument.

It is already in Telegram. Open a direct chat and just say something, no slash required. Free to start, and the paid tiers only raise the ceilings.

Ask it something

t.me/TapLMbot