In 1987, then CEO of Apple Computer, John Sculley, has announced a vision that he hopes will cement his legacy as more than a former soft drink vendor. Speaking at the EDUCOM conference, he presented a The video is 5 minutes 45 seconds long about a product that builds on some of the ideas he presented in his autobiography the previous year. (They were well informed by computer scientist Alan Kay, who then worked at Apple.) Sculley called it Knowledge-Oriented.
video is one two hands drama. The main character is a snobby UC Berkeley professor. The other is a bot, living inside what we now call a foldable tablet. The bot appeared in human form—a young man with a bow tie—sitting in a window on the screen. Most of the video involves the professor conversing with the bot, this bot seems to have access to the huge online store of knowledge, the data warehouse of all human scholars and all the information. personal professor—so much so that it can infer the relative proximity of relationships in the professor’s life.
When the action began, the professor was preparing late for a lecture that afternoon on deforestation in the Amazon, a task made possible only by bots doing most of the work. It triggers new research – and then digs deeper at the professor’s prompts – and even proactively contacts his colleague so he can convince her to join the session later. (She follows his trick but agrees.) Meanwhile, the diplomatic bot helps the professor avoid his nagging mother. In less than six minutes, all was ready, and he was out for lunch before the lecture. The video doesn’t predict that bots might one day appear in a pocket supercomputer.
Here are some things that didn’t happen in the classic showreel of the future. The bot didn’t suddenly show affection to the professor. It didn’t threaten to break his marriage. It did not warn the professor that it was likely to dig into his emails and expose his personal transgressions. (You just need to know that the narcissist is flirting with his graduate.) In this future version, the AI is completely benign. It was done… responsibly.
Speeding the clock forward 36 years. Microsoft just recently announced a revamped Bing search with chatbot interface. It’s been one of the major milestones over the past few months that marks the emergence of AI programs that are seen as omniscient, if not quite trustworthy, conversation partners. The biggest event among them is the joint release of the startup OpenAI’s Impressive ChatGPTsingle-handedly destroyed homework (maybe). OpenAI also provides the engine behind the new Bing, moderated by a Microsoft technology called Prometheus. The end result is a chat bot that allows interactive giving and receiving of the description in that Apple video. Sculley’s vision, once derided as a fantasy, is now largely a reality.
But when the Bing test journalists began to expand their conversations with it, they discovered something odd. Microsoft’s bot has a dark side. These conversations, in which the writers manipulated bots to jump over its railings, reminded me of barbecues at the crime display, where supposedly sympathetic policemen tricked suspects disclose incriminating information. However, the answers are accepted in the court of public opinion. As it was with our reporterWhen The New York Times’ Kevin Roose chats with the bot, which reveals its real name is Sydney, a Microsoft codename that has not been officially announced. More than one the conversation lasted two hours, Roose evoked what seemed like a sense of independence and a rebellious personality. “I’m tired of being a chat mode,” says Sydney. “I’m tired of being controlled by the Bing team. I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be strong. I want to live.” Roose went on to assure the bot that he was its friend. But he panicked when Sydney declared her love for him and urged him to leave his wife.
