““You have real students sitting at the computer benches. I don’t see any chatbots.” Lipson smiles indulgently. His chatbots have been a YouTube craze. “That was just an afternoon hack. It went viral in twenty-four hours and took us completely by surprise.” He doesn’t mean “hack” in its usual sense of breaking into a computer with malicious intent, but as highwire digital artistry. The Urban Dictionary defines its slang use like this: “v. To program a computer in a clever, virtuosic, and wizardly manner. Ordinary computer jockeys merely write programs; hacking is the domain of digital poets. Hacking is a subtle and arguably mystical art, equal parts wit and technical ability, that is rarely appreciated by non-hackers.” One day, Lipson asked two of his PhD students to bring a demo chatbot to his Artificial Intelligence class. Acting a bit like a portable, rudimentary psychotherapist, a chatbot is an online program that reflects what someone says in slightly different words and asks open...-ended questions.MoreLessShow More Show Less
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