ChatGPT: Chatbots can help us rediscover the rich history of dialogue
It is time to take human-AI dialogue seriously again. With the release of sophisticated chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, effective human-AI dialogue has become interesting and accessible to everyone. Even to students writing essays, which has led to some academic concerns.
Exploring the History of Dialogue
By looking to the philosophical history of dialogue, we can reframe the question to ask how we might use these new chatbots in our learning.
AI’s connection with dialogue has a history. In 1950 English mathematician Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game” where a judge entered into a typed dialogue with an AI pretending to be human as a way of testing if the AI was intelligent.
AI and Dialogue Today
What would today’s AI chatbots have to say about such dialogue? Lex.page is an AI-enabled writing tool that can generate text or answer questions. According to Lex.page:
"AI is related to dialogue in a variety of ways. These can be used to create natural, human-like conversations and interactions with users, enabling computers and other devices to understand and respond appropriately to user inputs. It can also be used to analyze and interpret conversation data, helping to improve customer service, detect fraud and more."
The Turing Test has been instrumental in assessing AI's ability to engage in human-like dialogue. It involves a human conversing with two entities, one being a machine, without knowing which one is the machine. If the human cannot tell the difference between the machine and the other entity, then the AI has passed the Turing Test.
Evolution of Dialogue with Technology
For decades, human-computer dialogue took the form of a command line where examples like Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA provided responses akin to a therapist engaging in conversation. However, with the development of Large Language Models (LLMs), the landscape has evolved significantly, allowing for more sophisticated conversations and text generation.
Moreover, the dialogue with the Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) sparked discussions around the potential sentience of AI, leading to ethical considerations in its development.
The Role of Dialogue in Philosophy
There is a long tradition in philosophy of thinking through difficult topics with dialogue. In the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon, Socrates is presented as doing philosophy through dialogue.
By thinking through dialogue, we could all rediscover the rich history and potential of this form of engagement, especially in the context of emerging technologies like chatbots.
