SPECIAL
How breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are making everyday chatbots smarter than ever
The printing press, the steam engine, the electric light bulb,the internet itself… all were technological breakthroughs that redefined how we live and work. Every so often, technology takes a massive leap forward that goes so fast and so far, society struggles to keep pace with the speed of change it brings. Recent developments in chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard have ushered in one of those new eras. So much so that even some of the brightest minds behind them aren’t quite sure what they’re yet capable of. Should we be worried? Or is this all simply another breakthrough that one day we’ll look back on and wonder how we ever lived any other way?
A chatbot is a piece of software that responds to us the way a human would when we talk to it, either by typing or talking.Chatbots can respond to our questions, help organise our days, play our favourite music, write poetry, design images, control our smart homes and even offer advice. Think of them like a friendly face covering all the cold and digitised bits of code that make up the databases and servers that form the technology our modern world is built on. For instance, a chatbot might be a customer service agent at your mobile phone provider. Instead of having to go trawling through lots of different databases and spreadsheets to find out what you need to know – such as how much last month’s phone bill was – you just ask the chatbot.
The chatbot analyses your question and puts it into context using artificial intelligence (AI) to figure out what you want. The chatbot then does all that sifting for you. It goes through all the back office systems at the mobile phone company and presents you with a simple answer – just as though you were talking to a person, only much faster. What’s changed is how sophisticated these chatbots are becoming. Sure, asking one a simple question about your bill will bring you a simple answer. But what if you asked it to design a new type of car, write an entire novel for you or even sit a law exam for you while you go to the coffee shop instead? Now they can do all of these things too, and much more.
The integration of breakthroughs in AI natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) have seen huge leaps forward in the last year alone. These advances are making people question just how far chatbots could advance, what kind of roles they could perform in wider society and how that could impact us all. You’ve probably heard of Alan Turing, of Bletchley Park fame. A war hero and one of the forefathers of modern computer science, he designed early computers to crack German World War II codes that helped the Allies win the war. And it was Turi
