Chatbots and AI

Explained by Common Craft
Chatbots are a primary way that people use artificial intelligence. These simple tools provide an easy way for us to harness the power of AI. By understanding how they work and what’s possible, we can learn to use them responsibly.
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Video Transcript:

When two people chat online, it works like a conversation in real life. We ask questions, understand, and respond. We automatically recognize emotion, context, attitude, and meaning.

Today, we can also chat with computers.

We send messages and the computer responds.

This is called a chatbot.

Many chatbots, like in customer support, are programmed to chat with pre-written responses that don't sound very human.

This is changing because chatbots are becoming more powerful thanks to artificial intelligence or AI.

Instead of using pre-written responses, these chatbots use artificial intelligence that can understand human language and generate original responses on the fly. The messages we provide are called prompts. And you can ask AI chat bots to generate original stories, music, images, code, videos, and more. And that includes a bulldog wearing a tutu.

This is why chatbots matter. They help us use the power of AI with text that feels simple and natural.

Let's say you're creating a video about the Punic war.

Websites and books are helpful, but you can get started quickly by chatting with AI. You can ask it to list the most famous events of the war and it will bond in seconds.

If you need visuals of the war, you can use a chatbot to ask generative AI to create it. AI has seen thousands of images related to the Punic war and can create something new just for you.

Chatbots make AI easy to use. But how do they work?

Two big ideas make it work. Natural language processing or NLP and large language models or LLMs. Let's take a look.

Chatbots need to be good at understanding human language. This means detecting data, recognizing the intent of the user, context of the message and more. Natural language processing is a field of AI that provides the rules and processes for helping the chatbot understand how humans communicate.

Here, NLP helps AI understand the humans prompt.

Many chatbots also depend on large language models or LLMs.

An LLM is like a massive database of nearly every word on the internet. These billions of words are analyzed by massive computers and used to predict what words should appear together in a chat response.

When you chat with AI, natural language processing helps AI understand your prompt.

Then the LLM works to provide a response that sounds human.

Imagine asking a chat bot. How many records were broken at the 1952 Olympics.

This is pretty complicated for a computer. Consider the word records. Is that referring to music, or vinyl records smashed to pieces?

Natural language processing helps the chatbot understand the request.

It can detect that you need a number that relates to a specific date of an event.

The large language model has analyzed these data and assembles a response based on what it has seen on the internet.

Together, natural language processing and large language models make chatbots a powerful tool for accessing knowledge and creating media. It's important to remember that chatbots may provide biased, misleading, or inaccurate information because their source, the internet is also inaccurate and biased.

Using them responsibly means evaluating and editing the information they provide to ensure it's useful and correct.

 

 

What it teaches:

Most people have used a chat tool that involves sending and receiving digital text-based messages. This simple format has become a common way to work with artificial intelligence. This video explains the evolution of chatbots, how to use them, and what makes them work. You’ll learn:

    •    Why chatbots matter in online communication
    •    How chatbots have evolved over time
    •    How AI has changed our use of chatbots
    •    How Natural Language Processing works with chatbots
    •    How Large Language Models work with chatbots
    •    Why users of chatbots should evaluate and edit chatbot responses

 

Video Info:

  • Duration:  03m 49s
  • Captions Available:  YES
  • Lesson Plan:  YES
  • Category:  Technology
  • ISTE Standard:  Empowered Learner, Indicator 1d
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