As you know, my research go-to source is Claude.ai. Here’s what I asked him this morning…
“I need the type of material that would make giant see-through vats where my bad guy puts people to experiment on them. It contains a thick viscous liquid they breathe, and the people, one per vat, are hooked up to cables and wires and such to feed and monitor them. The people/guinea pigs float in these vats full of liquid while my bad guy experiments on them. What kind of plastic or material would be strong enough to make these huge vats and still be transparent enough to see the people inside?”
And he/it responded…
(First he goes through a “thought process” assessing my needs:)
Thought process
This is a creative writing question for a speculative fiction story. The user is asking about materials for transparent containment vessels in their fictional story – specifically for large vats that hold liquid and people who are being experimented on by an antagonist. This is clearly for worldbuilding/fiction purposes.
This is a legitimate creative writing question and I should help with it. The user needs:
- Transparent material
- Strong enough for large vats
- Can contain viscous liquid
- Can withstand pressure from liquid and human bodies
- Needs to look believable in a sci-fi context
I can suggest real materials and fictional/speculative options that would work for their story. This is helping with creative fiction writing, not anything harmful.
(Then he answers my question:)
Good morning! Great worldbuilding question – let me give you some options that could work for your story:
Real-world materials:
Polycarbonate – This is your most practical choice. It’s incredibly strong (250x stronger than glass), highly transparent, and used for things like bulletproof glass, aquarium viewing panels, and riot shields. It can be molded into large shapes and would realistically hold up under the pressure of liquid and a human body.
Acrylic (PMMA/Plexiglas) – Nearly as clear as glass, very strong, and commonly used in large aquarium tanks. Slightly more brittle than polycarbonate but has better optical clarity.
Laminated glass – Multiple layers of glass with polymer interlayers. Very strong and used in large aquariums, though harder to mold into complex shapes.
For a more speculative fiction feel:
You could invent a transparent aluminum oxynitride (ALON) variant – this actually exists but is expensive and used militarily. You could extrapolate it being more common/refined in your story’s setting.
Or create something like “reinforced carbon-silicate polymer” or “transparent ceramic composite” – sciencey-sounding enough to be believable while giving you complete creative freedom for its properties.
The viscous breathable liquid sounds like you might be thinking of something like oxygenated perfluorocarbon – very cool concept! What kind of setting is this story in?
(end conversation)
And so we went off into more detailed discussions of the story, which I’ll post in another post. I could have looked this stuff up on my own, but I wanted to show you some of the ways I use AI to do my research. The good thing about using one AI consistently is that Claude, the one I like best for fiction writing, can look back at our previous conversations and pull info from that and give more detailed responses and I don’t have to constantly re-tell the story to him. A big help! And a time saver.
Everyone has their fave AI nowadays. Many like ChatGPT but I found it limiting unless you pay for more access. There’s also GalaxyAI where you can use more than one AI at a time and compare their responses, because you have to know, AI make mistakes. Always doublecheck their facts. Use more than on AI for fact checking, and look
What is your fave AI?
