A funny image on Reddit suggesting what ChatGPT would be like during someone's childhood had me thinking about how of-the-moment AI chatbots are. The look and feel of conversing with ChatGPT or one of its rivals only really makes sense when everyone is wirelessly online with what once would have seemed a ludicrously fast internet connection linked to a massive digital cloud network.
But it also made me think of my own 1990s childhood. What if instead of diving into my Encarta CD-ROM or hunting through the Scholastic Book Fair, I had a robotic intelligence with a huge database of knowledge sitting in the family PC between the Oregon Trail and SimCity 2000?
