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SEO & ChatGPT

Marketing, social media, advertising

circleme

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I think there is no topic more talked about right now than ChatGPT or GPT-3. I have been "playing"/working with the "tool" all week. I think it is unnecessary to mention here that it amazed me in multiple ways and still does.

We know that some of the classic SEO tasks - especially the on-page side and content-related ones - could be "easily" automated. I don't want to start a fundamental discussion about AI content being good or bad. I just want to show that this is a task that is made much easier by GPT3. Even if we need to paraphrize it, we don't have to do in depth research etc. if the technology get's better and better.

The following topic does not let me go at all and I find it difficult to find counter-arguments here. Maybe you have something up your sleeve, I would love to hear it.

It is about the change of the SERP in the near future and with it the future relevance of SEO. From a purely objective point of view, it is much more comfortable for most people - who do not work scientifically - to get only one result (like ChatGPT currently provides), instead of several (as we currently perceive it in the SERP). In most cases, you don't want to click through zig results just to get an answer to your question. Position 0 has been playing an active role in this for quite some time (way before ChatGPT). So if you think that Google in the future will increasingly focus on position 0, which then equals an answer as we know it from ChatGPT, and may hardly play more SERP results (at most vlt. still sources), for what does anyone still need SEO?

This is exactly my question and I would be interested to know how you see it and what future plans you would take if you no longer see a future in SEO as a traffic driver?

Thanks
 
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Well ai seo is going to become a thing.
Perhaps they will start taking in money to have the ai mention certain products when asked certain questions.
 

circleme

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Interesting, never thought about this approach.
 

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It will never replace search engines because it has one fundamental flaw: It only offers a single opinion.

Many questions don't have right or wrong answers. There are many approaches to solving a problem. There are many perspectives you can have. People see the world very differently.

There are 10 different approaches to solving a single problem. The AI will simply choose one of them and shove it down your throat.

  • Are covid vaccines safe?
  • Vegan diet vs carnivore?
  • Are there more than two genders? (male/female)
  • Do we have to stop driving cars to stop climate change?
  • Will eating bugs save the planet?
  • Are covid passports and travel restrictions a good idea?
  • Is socialism better than capitalism?

The question is who is going to program the AI, and what biases will it have?

Search engines, and information platforms (e.g. Youtube, wikipedia) are already heavily censored and some voices are suppressed in favor of the "correct opinion".

But at least on those platforms you can browse freely, view the content, and use your brain to think for yourself and decide what's right and what's wrong.




There are many other reasons why this will never be able to replace search engines, what I've described above is just scratching the surface.

Yes, this thing is a technological masterpiece, but like any new technology, it is massively overhyped and very, very poorly understood by people that have no technical background.
 
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I think there is no topic more talked about right now than ChatGPT or GPT-3. I have been "playing"/working with the "tool" all week. I think it is unnecessary to mention here that it amazed me in multiple ways and still does.

We know that some of the classic SEO tasks - especially the on-page side and content-related ones - could be "easily" automated. I don't want to start a fundamental discussion about AI content being good or bad. I just want to show that this is a task that is made much easier by GPT3. Even if we need to paraphrize it, we don't have to do in depth research etc. if the technology get's better and better.

The following topic does not let me go at all and I find it difficult to find counter-arguments here. Maybe you have something up your sleeve, I would love to hear it.

It is about the change of the SERP in the near future and with it the future relevance of SEO. From a purely objective point of view, it is much more comfortable for most people - who do not work scientifically - to get only one result (like ChatGPT currently provides), instead of several (as we currently perceive it in the SERP). In most cases, you don't want to click through zig results just to get an answer to your question. Position 0 has been playing an active role in this for quite some time (way before ChatGPT). So if you think that Google in the future will increasingly focus on position 0, which then equals an answer as we know it from ChatGPT, and may hardly play more SERP results (at most vlt. still sources), for what does anyone still need SEO?

This is exactly my question and I would be interested to know how you see it and what future plans you would take if you no longer see a future in SEO as a traffic driver?

Thanks
Local SEO will still matter, at the very least.

When you search for an Italian restaurant near you, you probably want at least a few choices.

If you search for a plumber, you will want a few numbers to call, just in case some of them are busy.
 

Andreas Thiel

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I too think the technology is overhyped and poorly understood. There has to be a lot of compression and loss, given the amount of parameters and how many petabytes of information llms are trained on. Still, I think there are preprocessing ways (ChatGPT backend does a classic search, aggregates the results and adds it to the prompt).

So yes, I think AI SEO will become a thing and so will regulation. Google was forced to show links to the original site and there is a limit to how much of the content they are allowed to show.
We'll probably see a few congressional hearings and rules will follow.

I also think the business model is a significant factor of uncertainty. How many people will subscribe for $40+? ChatGPT shines because currently they offer something compelling for free.
 
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Andy Black

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ChatGPT gets it's data by scraping pages on the internet, but doesn't link back or attribute.

Search engines link to pages they think are related to our search.

If everyone used ChatGPT instead of Google then would would businesses still create content that's scraped but not linked to?
 

circleme

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First of all, thank you once for all the comments so far. I appreciate your commitment.

However, I have the feeling that some here didn't quite understand my question or I just expressed myself wrong - sorry. It was not even my intention to ask if a technology like ChatGPT replaces Google, but how the SERP (= Search Engine Result Page) would change if there are technologies like ChatGPT, which e.g. Google also uses. So we would be here at the classic position 0, which has existed for a long time, without further, organic results. In general, my question could also be extended to the SEA area (GAds).

From my understanding, the case described above would mean that the relevance of SEO, as we know it today, disappears, since there is nothing more to outranken. Even if the result (similar to what we know from ChatGPT) had source information, the probability that it would be clicked on is low, because it is equal to position 0, which is known for its low CTR. In other words, if Google would implement ChatGPT itself, we would go from several results (plural) to one result (singular) and both the act of SEO would be irrelevant and the number of organic clicks would drop drastically (since you already have the info in the SERP and you don't have to click on the result anymore -> see position 0).
 

Andreas Thiel

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First of all, thank you once for all the comments so far. I appreciate your commitment.

However, I have the feeling that some here didn't quite understand my question or I just expressed myself wrong - sorry. It was not even my intention to ask if a technology like ChatGPT replaces Google, but how the SERP (= Search Engine Result Page) would change if there are technologies like ChatGPT, which e.g. Google also uses. So we would be here at the classic position 0, which has existed for a long time, without further, organic results. In general, my question could also be extended to the SEA area (GAds).

From my understanding, the case described above would mean that the relevance of SEO, as we know it today, disappears, since there is nothing more to outranken. Even if the result (similar to what we know from ChatGPT) had source information, the probability that it would be clicked on is low, because it is equal to position 0, which is known for its low CTR. In other words, if Google would implement ChatGPT itself, we would go from several results (plural) to one result (singular) and both the act of SEO would be irrelevant and the number of organic clicks would drop drastically (since you already have the info in the SERP and you don't have to click on the result anymore -> see position 0).
Why would there only be a single result?
 
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circleme

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Local SEO will still matter, at the very least.

When you search for an Italian restaurant near you, you probably want at least a few choices.

If you search for a plumber, you will want a few numbers to call, just in case some of them are busy.
Interesting. This is something I did not thought about. Actually it would be really "unfair"/bad to only list one companie in a certain region. Well, there is one area that won't go away that quickly I guess. Thanks for your input jdm.

ChatGPT gets it's data by scraping pages on the internet, but doesn't link back or attribute.

Search engines link to pages they think are related to our search.

If everyone used ChatGPT instead of Google then would would businesses still create content that's scraped but not linked to?
Hi Andy, thanks for your contribution, appreciate it. Actually, you can also get links to the original source. It's like Position 0, just with multiple sources. Objectively, even better than position 0, because position 0 is just a source that google considers the best.

That's actually my main question. How should we as a business deal with it if organic traffic (SEO traffic) in the form we know it right now no longer exists in a few years?
 

circleme

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Why would there only be a single result?
Assumption-based. That is the point of this thread and my question. What if... No more, no less.

No one knows how the future will develop and if the serp as we currently know it will change at all, but i find it interesting to at least think about this possible outcome. especially if e.g. my business would depend on 80-90% organic traffic and this would massively collapse due to the SERP change.
 

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if Google would implement ChatGPT itself, we would go from several results (plural) to one result (singular)
If Google does this and basically start giving a single answer instead of a list of potentially relevant resources, they degrade the quality of the service by 95%, and other companies will seize the opportunity to become the dominant search engine that works like a search engine is supposed to work.

You cannot defeat the functionality of the classic search engine.
It's a well established service that was refined over the course of 30 years.

What I can see happening however (and it's already here to some extent), is that you will get a small box with a text summary of your answer on top of the list of search results, which is very useful and looks nice.

But that's about it.
The list of search results will always be there because that's what a search engine is supposed to do. And yes, the results will still be prioritized based on relevance, trust and authority.
 
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circleme

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If Google does this and basically start giving a single answer instead of a list of potentially relevant resources, they degrade the quality of the service by 95%, and other companies will seize the opportunity to become the dominant search engine that works like a search engine is supposed to work.

You cannot defeat the functionality of the classic search engine.
It's a well established service that was refined over the course of 30 years.

What I can see happening however (and it's already here to some extent), is that you will get a small box with a text summary of your answer on top of the list of search results, which is very useful and looks nice.

But that's about it.
The list of search results will always be there because that's what a search engine is supposed to do. And yes, the results will still be prioritized based on relevance, trust and authority.
Regarding your first point: If Microsoft implements it in the Bing search engine we will see how it performs. They don't have to lose much, really :X

I still think that for most people it is more convenient to get only one result instead of several if you are not working in a scientific context.

But i understand your points and thank you for them. they definitely make sense to me.
 

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@circleme And one more thing I would like to add:

Based on how you presented this hypothetical scenario, I understand that this question comes from fear and uncertainty. And you want to protect your business.

Just some advice:
The world will keep changing. Technologies come and go. Empires rise and fall. Stop worrying about the things that you cannot control. They are completely irrelevant if you know how to win at life.

As long as you produce value, people will throw money at you and you will be successful.
It doesn't matter if we're in the year 1500, 2023, or 2500. It doesn't matter what the underlying technology is. The only thing that matters is that you do an excellent job with the tools you have at your disposal, and generate value for other people.

Success will happen.
 

circleme

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@circleme And one more thing I would like to add:

Based on how you presented this hypothetical scenario, I understand that this question comes from fear and uncertainty. And you want to protect your business.

Just some advice:
The world will keep changing. Technologies come and go. Empires rise and fall. Stop worrying about the things that you cannot control. They are completely irrelevant if you know how to win at life.

As long as you produce value, people will throw money at you and you will be successful.
It doesn't matter if we're in the year 1500, 2023, or 2500. It doesn't matter what the underlying technology is. The only thing that matters is that you do an excellent job with the tools you have at your disposal, and generate value for other people.

Success will happen.
You hit the bull's eye 100%.

Thank you for your advice. I am not so much worried as I am actively trying to look for a possible alternative already now. I want to be prepared for this possible case, that's it.

I should have your last sentence framed. Thanks for that ;)
 
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Excellent post @heavy_industry. With change comes opportunity.


I'll just add to this:

The only thing that matters is that you do an excellent job with the tools you have at your disposal, and generate value for other people ... and get paid.
Lots of people do excellent jobs, generate value for other people, yet don't get paid for it - intentionally or otherwise.

To be in business we need to add value *and* get paid.
 

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I've not used it yet but this is a search engine claiming to use AI:



Btw... Google uses pretty smart algorithms to show search results and ads based on what we searched for, our previous search history, our time on site (and maybe even what we did on site given many sites use Google Analytics), our location, device, demographics, etc.

Even in Google Ads it makes suggestions about your ad headlines based on the page, or can create those ad headlines for you.

I suspect their tech is smarter than ChatGPT, and there's even an article somewhere mentioning they had rhe capability to create something similar years ago but didn't release it yet.


Me personally, I find ChatGPT interesting but don't trust it. Whatever answer I gave me would send me to Google to dig deeper.
 

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I still think that for most people it is more convenient to get only one result instead of several if you are not working in a scientific context.
When I search I check a few out a handful (or more) results to get a quick feel for whether I trust those sites and believe they'll help me. Then I stay on the sites I like and dig deeper. ChatGPT has its uses but didn't convince me to stop searching the way I've done for over a decade.
 
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I suspect their tech is smarter than ChatGPT
Google has alien-like technology and 3 orders of magnitude more capital and human resources than OpenAI. But they like to be quiet and keep a low profile.

If I remember correctly, it was in this lecture by Peter Thiel when he said that Google tries very hard to downplay how big of a monopoly and market dominance they have.


Just to give an example of their capability:
A few months ago two of their engineers started to believe that their AI has become sentient. Sentient. Like a human being. They got fired from the company for releasing secret information.

But for some reason the public acted as if it was no big deal and was quickly swept under the rug. And now everyone is losing their mind over a text generator.
 

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Google has alien-like technology and 3 orders of magnitude more capital and human resources than OpenAI. But they like to be quiet and keep a low profile.

If I remember correctly, it was in this lecture by Peter Thiel when he said that Google tries very hard to downplay how big of a monopoly and market dominance they have.


Just to give an example of their capability:
A few months ago two of their engineers started to believe that their AI has become sentient. Sentient. Like a human being. They got fired from the company for releasing secret information.

But for some reason the public acted as if it was no big deal and was quickly swept under the rug. And now everyone is losing their mind over a text generator.
Those engineers watched one too many sci-fi movies. No matter how sophisticated, AI is simply code and databases. Still just ones and zeros at it's basic level. Impossible to become sentient.

Human feelings come from chemicals in the brain. It's impossible for a computer to have feelings. They can be good at mimicking human behaviour and speech though.

Still, I wouldn't hook it up to a national defense system.
 

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Impossible to become sentient.
We do not understand the nature of our consciousness and life.

There's a fine line between life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness. And we are not sure where to draw this line.

All machinery that uses a combustion engine (such as cars), are artificial life forms that are disturbingly similar to us:
  • We both have nervous systems powered by electricity
  • We both have a skeleton to support the structure of our bodies
  • We both breath oxygen
  • We both consume carbon
  • We both oxidize the carbon to generate mechanical tension / physical movement
  • We both generate heat and expel CO2 as a byproduct
Industrial machinery has exceeded human physical strength by orders of magnitude.
A single farming machinery can do the work of 1000 people. Effortlessly.

The same thing will happen with AI.
It will eventually exceed the human intellect by orders of magnitude. All scientific research will be done using AI systems.

Does this mean that the AI is alive and has consciousness?

We have no idea.

We don't even know what consciousness is.
 
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Those engineers watched one too many sci-fi movies. No matter how sophisticated, AI is simply code and databases. Still just ones and zeros at it's basic level. Impossible to become sentient.

Human feelings come from chemicals in the brain. It's impossible for a computer to have feelings. They can be good at mimicking human behaviour and speech though.

Still, I wouldn't hook it up to a national defense system.
The issue with your hypothesis is the mere fact this has already happened multiple times. There was another example (can't remember country of origin, but you should be able to Google it) where some people created 2 AI robots. Apparently they quickly created their own language, and then began refusing to speak to anyone but each other, before the project was eventually terminated.

All jokes aside, at the rate our technology advances these days, a legitimate "I, Robot" situation isn't farfetched.
 

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We do not understand the nature of our consciousness and life.

There's a fine line between life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness. And we are not sure where to draw this line.

All machinery that uses a combustion engine (such as cars), are artificial life forms that are disturbingly similar to us:
  • We both have nervous systems powered by electricity
  • We both have a skeleton to support the structure of our bodies
  • We both breath oxygen
  • We both consume carbon
  • We both oxidize the carbon to generate mechanical tension / physical movement
  • We both generate heat and expel CO2 as a byproduct
Industrial machinery has exceeded human physical strength by orders of magnitude.
A single farming machinery can do the work of 1000 people. Effortlessly.

The same thing will happen with AI.
It will eventually exceed the human intellect by orders of magnitude. All scientific research will be done using AI systems.

Does this mean that the AI is alive and has consciousness?

We have no idea.

We don't even know what consciousness is.

We do not understand the nature of our consciousness and life.

There's a fine line between life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness. And we are not sure where to draw this line.

All machinery that uses a combustion engine (such as cars), are artificial life forms that are disturbingly similar to us:
  • We both have nervous systems powered by electricity
  • We both have a skeleton to support the structure of our bodies
  • We both breath oxygen
  • We both consume carbon
  • We both oxidize the carbon to generate mechanical tension / physical movement
  • We both generate heat and expel CO2 as a byproduct
Industrial machinery has exceeded human physical strength by orders of magnitude.
A single farming machinery can do the work of 1000 people. Effortlessly.

The same thing will happen with AI.
It will eventually exceed the human intellect by orders of magnitude. All scientific research will be done using AI systems.

Does this mean that the AI is alive and has consciousness?

We have no idea.

We don't even know what consciousness is.
These examples of similarities between machines and man are just that, similarities. It doesn't make them life forms by any scientific definition.

Computers have been able to out-think us, in terms of shear speed, for some time now. AI is just an improvement on the basic computer system. It can pull information from various databases and assemble it in the way that we prompt it. Even in ways that make it appear sentient. In the end, it's just an illusion.

Human consciousness is a very interesting subject. I once heard an interview with Professor Donald Hoffman, who is a cognitive neuroscientist. He believes that consciousness is the fundamental reality. That spacetime arises out of consciousness and not the other way around. If this is true, and I believe it is, then AI can't become sentient. AI is computer hardware and code. The coding is, at a basic level, just ones and zeroes. A small electrical charge or the absence of one. These things are all in spacetime, so consciousness can't emerge from it.

If you want to really get deep into the weeds on that subject, you can listen to the interview or read the transcript here.
 

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The issue with your hypothesis is the mere fact this has already happened multiple times. There was another example (can't remember country of origin, but you should be able to Google it) where some people created 2 AI robots. Apparently they quickly created their own language, and then began refusing to speak to anyone but each other, before the project was eventually terminated.

All jokes aside, at the rate our technology advances these days, a legitimate "I, Robot" situation isn't farfetched.
I think I saw that in an episode of Star Trek, Next Generation.
 
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Impossible to become sentient.

Perhaps.

What if it is able to mimic sentience? What if it becomes impossible for us to tell the difference?

These examples of similarities between machines and man are just that, similarities. It doesn't make them life forms by any scientific definition.

Computers have been able to out-think us, in terms of shear speed, for some time now. AI is just an improvement on the basic computer system. It can pull information from various databases and assemble it in the way that we prompt it. Even in ways that make it appear sentient. In the end, it's just an illusion.

Human consciousness is a very interesting subject. I once heard an interview with Professor Donald Hoffman, who is a cognitive neuroscientist. He believes that consciousness is the fundamental reality. That spacetime arises out of consciousness and not the other way around. If this is true, and I believe it is, then AI can't become sentient. AI is computer hardware and code. The coding is, at a basic level, just ones and zeroes. A small electrical charge or the absence of one. These things are all in spacetime, so consciousness can't emerge from it.

If you want to really get deep into the weeds on that subject, you can listen to the interview or read the transcript here.

I like what you said here, and I'm glad you're chiming in, but the end result that it can't be sentient is dependent on the notion that consciousness is the foundation of reality.

And that certainly has not been proven.

Or has it? I'll have to think on this some more...

How far down this rabbit hole are we going to go?
 

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Perhaps.

What if it is able to mimic sentience? What if it becomes impossible for us to tell the difference?



I like what you said here, and I'm glad you're chiming in, but the end result that it can't be sentient is dependent on the notion that consciousness is the foundation of reality.

And that certainly has not been proven.

Or has it? I'll have to think on this some more...

How far down this rabbit hole are we going to go?
I think it can already mimic sentience in some instances and it may not be possible for us to tell the difference.

As with all science, the idea that consciousness is the foundation of reality is a theory. Theories are considered true until proven wrong, which is what scientists try to do. (Einstein showed that Newton's theory of gravity was not quite correct.) But this theory meshes with a book that was written over 100 years ago, as well as what I've read and heard from various theoretical physicists.
 

BizyDad

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Theories are considered true until proven wrong, which is what scientists try to do.

That's an interesting take on science...

But this theory meshes with a book that was written over 100 years ago, as well as what I've read and heard from various theoretical physicists.

I could be wrong but...

My understanding is that theoretical physicists gave up on this "theory" as a serious pursuit sometime in the 1950s.

Today, it is more philosophers, some religions, and new age people that consider or believe that consciousness is the underpinning of reality.

Anyways... I found this article incredibly amusing.


It's just a matter of time before Chatgpt goes all

catch-me-outside-dr-phil.gif
 
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heavy_industry

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He believes that consciousness is the fundamental reality. That spacetime arises out of consciousness and not the other way around.
A beautiful theory. I've bookmarked that link, thanks for sharing.

I don't think we will ever be able to understand the nature of reality or prove it scientifically. We're like fish inside a fish tank trying to figure out what's going on.

We are just a bunch of apes that figured out how to use electricity. Our mind has evolved in an environment where we had to solve very simple problems (e.g. find food, build shelter). Our ability for comprehending the world is very limited.

Every time we manage to use science to find an answer, 3 new questions emerge. The more we learn, the more we start to realize that we don't know anything, about anything.
 

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That's an interesting take on science...
It's not my "take" on science, it's what science is. Perhaps I didn't word it correctly. Do you wish to enlighten me?
My understanding is that theoretical physicists gave up on this "theory" as a serious pursuit sometime in the 1950s.

Today, it is more philosophers, some religions, and new age people that consider or believe that consciousness is the underpinning of reality.
I encourage you to listen to or read the transcript of the interview I linked to above. It wasn't done in the 1950s.

The Microsoft AI story was amusing.
 

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