The Conflict Between Human and AI


AI has become an all-encompassing word being used today and many wonder why it is so important for human survival and growth. We first need to look at the development of AI solutions since the mid-1960s when the first AI Chatbots came into existence from the first of the Robotics laboratories around the world. Back in the 1960s, AI was busy piecing together a language which would mimic the human in tone and the way it “thought things thru; even the computer programming language that was driving AI forwards was called Artificial Intelligence Programming Language. 

Smalltalk and ML 

One of the first of these languages was either ML or Smalltalk. Smalltalk would be at the center of Xerox Park and the work they were doing there. Eliza (1966) was developed at the MIT laboratories by Dr. Weizanbaum using MAD-SLIP a version of Lisp. Originally developed as a sort of mockery or parody to show the inconsistencies between the machine and the human it was “speaking” too. Weizenbaum received more praise than he expected from colleagues who sensed a certain human interaction with the scripted computer. 

What followed was a surprise

What followed Eliza (1966) and Jabberwocky (1981) was the growth and development of what is today called Conversational Interface Platform Software. Conversational software has developed steadily over the past 50 years. One of the latest developments has been IBM Watson (2006)and Siri (2010) IBM Watson was the first computer to actually be smart enough to play Jeopardy and compete with humans.

AI and Chatbot Psychology

For the past 20 years, a young Ph.D. student and her team have applied AI Technology to the field of psychology. A program they developed at their Stanford psychology labs called Woebot allows CBT patients to work thru their anxiety while interacting with Woebot, a form of Chatbot designed for mental patients working thru stress issues. Woebot interacts with human intelligence

Woebot grows stronger and has shown that it can be related better to each patient over time and the Chaptbot gets to know the patient and vice versa. Conversational AI solutions are not just about meeting customers, but also about meeting humans where they are and giving them a better experience of life as they mature. AI and machines can AI help one another. 

AI is at the forefront of technological advances where machines interact with humans in ways not available before AI showed it could learn from their experiences on a one to one basis. Dr. Darcy and her team at Stanford have shown thru scientific study that mental patients actually began to feel better with themselves after interacting with Woebot during a two-week trial period. 

Fifty Years Later and Twenty Years in Development

Just as Dr. Weizanbaum had experienced in the MIT labs in the mid-1960s with ELIZA, so Dr. Darcy’s testing showed scientifically what Dr. Weizenbaum was surprised with people’s response to ELIZA; that is, they were comforted by interacting with a scripted machine. Woebot has over 20 years of development built into its responses to mental patients with stories, tools to help the patient and ways of moving the patient from one state of mind to another thru interaction.

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