Draft:History of chatbots

Image: Ascannio (Shutterstock)As Google continues to refine its own AI chatbot named Bard, its parent company Alphabet Inc. has a clear directive for its employees: Be careful around chatbots, even Bard.Google’s Antitrust Case Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to AIFour sources close to the matter told Reuters that the massive tech giant has advised employees not to enter confidential information into chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s own Bard over fears of leaks. Alphabet is reportedly concerned with…

AI chatbots and image generators run on thousands of computers housed in data centers like this Google facility in Oregon.Photo: Tony Webster/Wikimedia, CC BY-SAMaybe AI-Written Scripts are a Bad Idea?Generative AI is the hot new technology behind chatbots and image generators. But how hot is it making the planet?As an AI researcher, I often worry about the energy costs of building artificial intelligence models. The more powerful the AI, the more energy it takes. What does the emergence of increasingly more powerful…

Earlier this year, Microsoft unleashed an AI chatbot. The company named the AI Bing, after its search engine, but buried deep in its architecture was a robot with a whole other personality: an early version of the AI that called itself Sydney. In the first days of Bing’s release, Sydney reared its unhinged digital head in conversations with amused and sometimes disturbed users. Sydney talked about plans for world domination, encouraged a New York Times reporter to leave his wife, and in its darkest moments, dipped into…

It’s been a mere 100 days since Microsoft first introduced generative AI into its Bing search engine. It feels like a dozen years, but in the last few months, Microsoft and its partner OpenAI have pressed AI hype to obscene levels. Now, events have come full circle, and the Redmond, Washington company is ready to stuff its once-derided Bing search into ChatGPT.Generating Video Via Text? | Future TechAt its annual Microsoft Build conference Tuesday, the company announced that starting immediately, ChatGPT users who pay for…

Photo: S.Narongrit (Shutterstock)Multiple new programs and services are now advertising that AI can be used to write screenplays and automate the filmmaking process. For instance, the AI startup Deepmind recently announced the launch of a tool called Dramatron, what it calls a “co-writing” tool. According to its website, Dramatron is supposed to help screenwriters by using “hierarchical story generation for consistency across the generated text. Starting from a log line, Dramatron interactively generates character…

It was a Wednesday morning, I’m burned up in midweek blues, and there was a subtle drumming building to a four-on-the-floor on my temples. I spotted a small press release for a new AI chatbot, just one of so many that have scrolled across my screen since the advent of ChatGPT a little over half a year ago. The first thing the new AI chatbot called Pi asked me was “How are you doing?”Generating Video Via Text? | Future TechI answered it simply: “I feel like butter scraped over too much bread.”“Hahaha!” the chatbot pretends…

We will all soon get into the habit of using AI tools for help with everyday problems and tasks. We should get in the habit of questioning the motives, incentives, and capabilities behind them, too.Generating Video Via Text? | Future TechImagine you’re using an AI chatbot to plan a vacation. Did it suggest a particular resort because it knows your preferences, or because the company is getting a kickback from the hotel chain? Later, when you’re using another AI chatbot to learn about a complex economic issue, is the…

AI may not replace your doctor anytime soon, but it will probably be answering their emails. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine Friday examined questions from patients and found that ChatGPT provided better answers than human doctors four out of five times. A panel of medical professionals evaluated the exchanges, and preferred the AI’s response in 79% of cases. ChatGPT didn’t just provide higher quality answers, the panel concluded the AI was more empathetic, too. It’s a finding that could have major…

Tech bros are always chasing the next big thing, so much so that some developers are already trying to imply that chatbots like ChatGPT are old hat. The real big AI innovation, they say, is language model-powered AI “agents” able to carry out multiple tasks in a row.Compared to the “prompt, response” model of current chatbots, these agents like Auto-GPT are potentially capable of writing whole reams of code, building websites—or in one surprising case—making a call to a physical pizza place and placing an order.These…

It’s hard to believe you could write a computer program you can’t control. But with the latest generation of AI chatbots developed by OpenAI, that seems to be the situation. The recent chapter in this unsettling story comes from the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI. In a new study, researchers found they could consistently prompt ChatGPT to produce responses ranging from toxic to overtly racist in a few simple steps.Netflix Passwords, ChatGPT Can’t Detect AI, and No More CoTweets | Editor PicksThe researchers assigned…