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AI & long-form writingManuscripts & reading editions

Story of Systems

I’m directing a collection of model-written books about systems, information and quantum mechanics. Successive editions return to the same subjects through different models and tellings.

Model edition

September 2026. Three volumes, each a new telling: systems, information and quantum mechanics.

Cover for A Story of Systems — GPT-6 (Astra) edition
A Story of SystemsWhat Became Possible123 pages
Cover for A Story of Information — GPT-6 (Astra) edition
A Story of InformationThe Long Reach of a Moment132 pages
Cover for A Story of Quantum Mechanics — GPT-6 (Astra) edition
A Story of Quantum MechanicsWhat the World Allows133 pages

Directed by David Jones. Written by GPT-6 (Astra).

September 2026. The fifth Systems telling. This edition contains one volume.

Cover for A Story of Systems — Claude Fable 5.1 edition
A Story of SystemsAn Autobiography of the Universe182 pages

Directed by David Jones. Written by Claude Fable 5.1.

July 2026. A preserved Systems manuscript, shown with its original cover artwork.

Original cover artwork for A Story of Systems — Claude Opus 5 edition
A Story of SystemsAn Autobiography of the UniversePreserved manuscript

Directed by David Jones. Written by Claude Opus 5.

July–August 2026. Two preserved volumes: Systems and the earlier telling of the Quantum.

Cover for A Story of Systems — Claude Fable 5 edition
A Story of SystemsAn Autobiography of the Universe195 pages
Cover for A Story of the Quantum — Claude Fable 5 edition
A Story of the QuantumThe Floor of the World172 pages

Directed by David Jones. Written by Claude Fable 5.

A continuing creative project.

Story of Systems is a collection I’m developing with AI models. I direct the project; the models write the text. The current reading editions credit the writing to GPT-6 (Astra), with my name credited for the project.

The collection now includes three volumes, each following a different subject through a sustained narrative. Earlier model editions remain alongside the latest manuscripts.

Three subjects, three books.

A Story of Systems: What Became Possible follows a history from the hot early universe through stars, living systems, human culture and learning machines. A child helping a moth frames the telling.

A Story of Information: The Long Reach of a Moment follows traces, inheritance, memory, writing, communications, computing and learned models. It opens around the recovery of a nineteenth-century sound recording.

A Story of Quantum Mechanics: What the World Allows explores the evidence and consequences of quantum mechanics, framed by an ideal single-photon experiment.

Return to the telling.

I preserve earlier editions as the project moves through successive models. They give me different versions of the same long-form challenge to read beside one another: how a book is organized, how a difficult idea is explained and how a theme is carried across chapters.

The books are creative artifacts rather than a controlled model benchmark. The editions make their writing attribution explicit, so the text and its origin can be considered together.

From chapters to reading editions.

The current Astra set has editable chapter manuscripts, assembled text and both light and dark PDF editions. Each book includes linked contents and source notes, with its own typographic cover and color palette.

The source notes distinguish evidence, interpretation and imagined or idealized scenes. They are part of the reading experience, alongside the narrative; their presence does not replace checking the books’ scientific claims.