You know, when I think back about the person that I was a long time ago, I wonder how I managed to become the person that I am today, and I don’t see that as an exaggeration.
I used to be the kind of person who would dream of becoming an investment banker – that’s the kind of person that I was; I would imagine how it would look like when I ended up working for 12, 13, 14, 15 hours a day, thinking to myself that that was the ideal.
But no, that wasn’t how things turned out.
I changed.
I became someone who wanted to make things happen for himself, to create something from the fabric of essentially nothing.
Why that is? Maybe it was a combination of different things – a combination of watching narcissism and the incessant desire to compare disappear, a sense of entitlement that placed me beyond others fading away, and a few other things that were tied to my identity and who I was in the past.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading recently to prepare for BiZ Gear Up on the 24th, and part of that led me to read a bit more about the early history of chatbots – I hope you’ll enjoy this one!
We take a brief moment to move away from the hype that is OpenAI‘s ChatGPT, and take a brief intermission as we make a small trip back in time.
Picture this: it’s the year 1966, and a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory named Joseph Weizenbaum has just created something remarkable – the world’s very first chatbot: ELIZA.
Image credit: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Just consider this example of a conversation from Norbert Landsteiner’s 2005 implementation of ELIZA, and you can see what it was capable of.
ELIZA was designed to simulate conversation by responding to typed text with pre-programmed phrases and questions.
But what made ELIZA so special was that it was programmed to mimic the conversational style of a therapist, in particular a Rogerian therapist.
Users could “talk” to ELIZA about their problems and concerns, and the chatbot would respond with empathetic and non-judgmental phrases like “Tell me more about that” or “How does that make you feel?”
It wasn’t just a simple question-and-answer program – it was designed to provide a sense of emotional support and understanding that reflects interestingly on the ways that people derive comfort from self-affirmation.
Weizenbaum didn’t intend for the chatbot to be taken very seriously, calling it a “parody” in his 1976 book “Computer Power and Human Reason”… But the way that the chatbot was received was far from just a parody.
The response to ELIZA was overwhelming.
People were fascinated by this new technology that could seemingly understand and respond to their thoughts and emotions, and the program quickly gained popularity as people tried the chatbot.
But perhaps what’s most remarkable about ELIZA is that it wasn’t just a novelty. Weizenbaum’s creation laid the foundation for decades of research in the field of natural language processing and artificial intelligence.
ELIZA was the first chatbot, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last – and its legacy lives on in the many conversational AI programs we use today, in our Bings, Bards, ChatGPTs, Claudes, and the many more that exist and will exist today.
Today, I delivered a quick seminar about ChatGPT, education, and the AI industry!
It was the first of three speaking events that I’m doing this week that lead up to something that’s a bit bigger.
We talked about a few things related to ChatGPT and the education system – mostly thoughts that have to do with the way Singapore’s been responding to these things, which has been pretty materially different compared to the way that pretty much any other country in the world has.
You’ll be able to watch the video here:
If you don’t have the time to watch it, we had a chat about writing, learning, personalized education, and a number of other things that I think you’ll enjoy when you get the chance to watch it – go and have a look if you’d like to hear some thoughts on that!
Speaking of students, one thing I’m looking forward to but didn’t actually imagine would happen will probably happen tomorrow; we’re not there, but soon!
I’ll have lots more to write in the day ahead, but I’d like to first start by getting a little bit more sleep, being better to myself, and preparing myself a little better by resting up for the day ahead 🙂 Till then!
