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I spent a whole day trying to get an old chatbot to understand my grocery list
This was about three years ago, before the big language models got good. I was trying to use this basic AI helper to sort my shopping list by aisle at my local Kroger. I typed 'milk, eggs, bread, chicken' and it kept asking if 'chicken' was a brand of cereal. I had to rephrase the same list six different ways, and it still grouped 'bread' with 'cleaning supplies'. Now I just take a picture of my handwritten list with my phone, and an app reads it and sorts everything perfectly in about two seconds. The jump from those old, literal bots to systems that actually get context is huge. Has anyone else had a totally silly early AI story that feels ancient now?
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brian86520d ago
Remember when those things couldn't even tell a chicken from a box of cornflakes? I tried to get one to set a timer for "pizza in the oven" and it started reading me Wikipedia facts about the history of brick ovens in Italy. I almost burned my dinner because I was laughing so hard at how completely it missed the point. The fact that they can now look at a messy list and just get it still feels like magic to me sometimes. We went from arguing with a brick wall to having an actual helper in just a few years.
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Oh man, that brings back memories. I once argued with a travel bot for an hour because it insisted the only way to get from Chicago to Detroit was by hot air balloon. The context switch really is the biggest change, from those literal word matches to something that actually understands what you mean.
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