Traversing the history of conversational AI

Interaction design intersected with AI well before the LLM revolution. This history is helpful to appreciate when applying design principles to the latest conversational experiences. Any discussion of AI at least mentions Alan Turing and the question posed by his article in Mind (a peer-reviewed academic journal).

Article: Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950) (https://redirect.cs.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf)

This is routinely referenced as the Turing Test. The ability of a machine to seem intelligent and be indistinguishable from a human.

Article: Wikipedia on the Turing Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test)

When this was published in 1950, we were still far from a computer being indistinguishable from a human, at least in a text-only interaction. We must skip ahead to the mid-1960s before we see something that appears to engage in discourse.

If we try out one of ELIZA’s conversational interfaces...