[pietro72ohboy]

Chat models were not invented with ChatGPT. Conversational search and AI was a well-established field of study well before ChatGPT. It is remarkable how many people unfamiliar with the field think ChatGPT was the first chat model. It may be the first widely-popular chat model but it certainly isn’t the first

[chewxy]

Dana Angluin's group were studying chat systems way back in 1992. There even was a conference around conversational AI back then.

[muzani]

Thank you folks for the correction!

[baobabKoodaa]

Nobody thinks of the idea "chat with computer" as a novel idea. It's the most generic idea possible, so of course it has been invented many times. ChatGPT broke out because of its execution, not the idea itself.

[shpx]

People call the first actually useful thing the first thing, that's not surprising or wrong.

[pietro72ohboy]

That statement is patently incorrect. While the 'usefulness' of something can be subjective, the date of creation is an absolute, immutable fact.

[randomdata]

What you have failed to grasp is that people are not logic machines. "First chatbot" is never uttered to mean the absolute first chatbot – for all they know someone created an undocumented chatbot in 10,000 B.C. that was lost to time – but merely the first chatbot they are aware of.

Normally the listener is able to read between the lines, but I suppose there may be some defective units out there.

[CamperBob2]

It's like arguing over who invented the light bulb or the personal computer. Answers other than "Edison" and "Wozniak", while very possibly more correct than either, will lead to an hours-long argument that changes exactly 0 minds.