Source note: Local copy of a Summer Into AI 2026 submission originally published on Substack. Screenshots, video, and audio found in the post body are mirrored locally when publicly accessible; profile and avatar images are intentionally not copied. Read the canonical post.
Week 4 of Summer into AI 2026 hosted by @advisoryhour — theme: Built on Yesterday.
The Convention let five Founding Fathers debate a single topic in one round of monologues. The Founders' Court runs two rounds — opening statements, then rebuttals where each founder reads all four opponents and attacks the strongest opposing claim by name — and then a third AI takes the bench: Chief Justice John Marshall reads the full transcript and rules on who argued best.
Worth noting alongside this: Eric's Zezek the Goblin (Week 2) gave one AI character a persistent personality (a web-based goblin brain). Founders' Court runs five personality-anchored characters simultaneously and makes them fight — then adds a sixth AI whose only job is to judge the other five
Built on yesterday — what changed
The original: The Convention (Week 2) — five founders each gave one speech on a topic, in sequence
Two debate rounds — after opening statements, each founder reads all four opponents and rebuts the strongest claim by name
A third AI role: Chief Justice Marshall reads the full transcript and delivers a structured judicial opinion on who argued best — the winner is crowned gold
Extended thinking streams live in a collapsible Reasoning panel per founder
Six contrasting ElevenLabs voices with auto-speak — founders voice their opening lines in sequence, and Chief Justice Marshall announces the final ruling aloud
How the AI works
Round 1 — parallel extended thinking streams — all five founders stream simultaneously via SSE. Each column shows a collapsible Reasoning panel with live thinking tokens, so you watch Washington deliberate before he speaks. Each system prompt is anchored with three real quotes from that founder's writings.
Round 2 — targeted rebuttals — after all five finish, the frontend collects all five arguments and fires a second round of parallel streams. Each founder receives the other four arguments, picks the strongest opposing claim, and dismantles it by name. "Hamilton's assertion that commerce requires..." — that kind of specific.
The Chief Justice — AI judging AI — when the rebuttals end, a new endpoint sends the full two-round transcript to Claude playing Chief Justice John Marshall. A forced tool call returns a structured opinion: the best advocate, why they won on argumentation quality, and a 2-3 paragraph judicial opinion in period voice. The winner's column is crowned gold. Three distinct AI roles: generate, rebut, judge.
Six distinct ElevenLabs voices — each founder auto-speaks their opening lines as they finish (Franklin is an old sage, Hamilton a young firebrand), and when the court adjourns, Chief Justice Marshall announces his ruling aloud from the bench. Click Speak on any founder for their full argument.
How to play
Pick one of six modern constitutional controversies — AI rights, digital surveillance, executive power, and more.
Watch all five founders stream their opening arguments simultaneously. Click any Reasoning panel to expand the extended thinking.
After round 1 completes, the Rebuttal Round opens automatically in the courtroom transcript — each founder attacks the strongest opposing claim by name.
When the court adjourns, Chief Justice Marshall deliberates and rules on who argued best — watch for the gold crown on the winning founder's column.
Where to play
Demo: week-4-demo-2-founders-court.vercel.app
Code & README: github.com/GlimmerForge/summer-into-ai → demo-02-founders-court/README.md
Summer into AI 2026 · Theme 4: Built on Yesterday
Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://jakestrait5.substack.com/p/summer-into-ai-2026-the-founders.