CauseCraft

A table game about real AI failures

CauseCraft

Everyone gets a different reason the same AI failure happened. A chatbot helps each person argue their reason. The table decides which argument was most convincing.

Try a sample round Read the rules Run a session
Five adults with laptops and phones sit around a table, with a failure card in the middle and a cause card in front of each of them.
Illustration: five players draft their arguments from the same failure card.
F01: CBA: the calls kept coming. The Finance Sector Union said CBA reversed plans to remove 45 customer-service roles. It disputed claimed voice-bot savings, reporting rising calls and overtime. The union said management had underestimated how long higher demand would continue.
Failure cardA reported incident. One per table.
C08: The people checking it trusted it too much.
Serious causeA plausible reason. One per person, argued whether you believe it or not.
X03: The project was cursed.
Absurd causeFor a lighter round, played and scored separately.

How a round works

  1. Deal

    5 minutes

    The table turns over one failure card. Each person is dealt a cause card to argue.

  2. Draft

    12 minutes

    Copy a ready-made prompt into a chatbot and work it into a 100–140-word argument. Invent nothing.

  3. Read

    8 minutes

    Everyone reads their argument aloud. Nobody rates anything until all have been heard.

  4. Rank

    8 minutes

    Everyone privately ranks every argument, their own included, from most to least persuasive.

  5. Discuss

    7 minutes

    Reveal the ranks. Did you rate your own argument higher than the table did? Was the winner right, or only persuasive?

Full rules and scoring

What players take away

A convincing argument is not evidence

Every cause in the deck can be argued for every incident. None of the incidents has an official single cause, so the winning argument proves nothing about what happened.

Fluent prose persuades either way

The chatbot writes; the people judge. Players notice what moved them: a mechanism, a vivid detail or just confident wording.

Your own argument looks better to you

The scoring compares how you ranked your own argument with how everyone else ranked it. That gap starts the conversation.

The incidents in the deck

Each failure card summarises what was reported about a real organisation, with its sources. The deck offers causes to argue, not verdicts.

Where next

Get the cardsPrint a table kit at home, or send the files to a card printer. Run a sessionRoom set-up, timing, what to say and the debrief questions. See the evidenceWhat was reported for each incident, and what remains unknown.

Browse every card in the deck