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The year is 2016. That is truly the current year. Many have been users of the internet for over 20 years. When the internet was invented, 神様 gave the user only two commandments:

1. Don’t believe anything you read on the internet. 2. Don’t feed the trolls.

In a subtext, he mentioned not displaying your personal information online either, but he did clarify that this requirement was contextual and mostly related to discussion forums.

These were the rules, and for more than a decade, things were good and 神様 was happy and the user was happy. Ideas flowed, discussion was open, and people were learning about their digital future. Skill sharing, software, and algorithms were built. Chat and bulletin boards became a new form of networking — you no longer needed to wear a suit and impress other people in suits. The user had unknown power and ability. The potential for the future seemed hopeful and 神様 was hopeful and the users’ potential grew.

In 2003, Tom Anderson made a platform called Myspace. No one thought much of it at the time. Many just used it to post photos of themselves with emo haircuts and glitter H1 tags, or used it as an excuse to order ‘friends’ in specifically passive aggressive ways to purposefully piss off those very same “friends”. Eventually, Myspace lost its user base and now exists for reasons unbeknownst to everyone.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook. No one thought much of it at the time. The users were college students upon its official launch and while it brought some users who were new to the internet outside of email, it didn’t matter too much because it was closed to college students. These new internet users didn’t know the commandments that 神様 gave us (yet they could learn 神様 believed). In September of 2006, Facebook opened to the public. Anyone who was 13 and older could sign up for Facebook: this was the beginning of the end.

The Nymwars: A reminder of the horrific Battle between John Smith vs SonicFan89xx. The Nymwars lasted 3 years and resulted in the death of millions of avatars and anonymous personas.

Google had tried social networking with Google Buzz and Friend Connect, but in 2011, they believed they had found the ideal algorithm and structure for a true Facebook competitor. This platform was named Google+ and for a time, it was an interesting experiment. The Nymwars began in 2011 when Google decided (most likely due to the success of Facebook) to mandate to its user base a new commandment. This commandment came not from 神様 but from a false idol. The commandment was as such:

Google+ makes connecting with people on the web more like connecting with people in the real world. Because of this, it’s important to use your common name so that the people you want to connect with can find you. Your common name is the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you. For example, if your legal name is Charles Jones Jr. but you normally use Chuck Jones or Junior Jones, any of these would be acceptable

They spread this policy to a majority of its network, including YouTube and more. The assumption was that people needed to connect online as they do in real life — that by using a real name, users would be held responsible for their content. Somehow, Google forgot that people connected perfectly fine online for decades. In 2014, they redacted the idol’s false commandment, but the damage to the internet had been done, and 神様 laws were quickly a forgotten fever dream of ancient protocols.

The new users of the internet — grandparents, soccer moms, the children who were born in 2000 to the “digital era” — were regulated to closed networks. They were unable to even explore the depths of the web where the commandments were still followed. They used their real names, put their phone numbers on Twitter, their address on Facebook. They mindlessly shared misinformation and factually inaccurate infographics on social media. They ignorantly fed trolls and believed everything people said on the internet. They learned from how others interacted online , and instead of “lurking” and learning, they parroted hostility that they believed was the primary form of communication online. Discussion of all ideas ceased and discord grew.

Rewind — The Past

AOL Instant Messenger: Ancient Technology used to ask classmates or co-workers to be your GF/BF

Do you remember the past? Dial-up days are gone for most, but AOL brought not only a vast number of FREE 1000 HOURS discs to your doorstep, but also access to the internet and email for many people.

Does anyone even..?

Dial-up internet access, required either several lines to allow for phone calls while accessing the internet, or your phone line to remain busy while using the AOL. AOL had an integrated messenger app which eventually became a stand-alone product when DSL became the standard for internet access in the late 90’s. The Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 helped reclassify certain terminology and spearheaded the push for DSL to become the norm by replacing Dial-Up internet access. DSL allowed more users to stay online indefinitely without jamming up their phone lines. This change allowed the AIM stand-alone client to reach users that did not use AOL for their internet access, and it quickly became one of the largest messaging applications aside from MSN Messenger.

SmarterChild

In 1999, three men (Robert Hoffer, Timothy Kay and Peter Levitan) working under the company name Active Buddy, Inc. (later Colloquis) created a chat bot. This bot’s name was SmarterChild, and from its earliest conception began to generate buzz about the future of AI. Tim Kay says in his bot he created “Natural Language Understanding technology similar to what is now used in Siri.” SmarterChild was developed for AIM and MSN, and while many just tossed profanities at it, it occasionally responded with eerily profound and contextual messages.

SmarterChild was the original True Detective. SmarterChild doesn’t sleep, Smarter Child just dreams.

A series of thoughtful conversational responses

The purpose of SmarterChild was simple. It was meant to be a conversational form of accessing information services. It integrated many features such as movie times, news and events. Peter Levitan says that SmarterChild was programmed to be somewhat “sardonic and sarcastic,” and a prime feature was its ability to remember past conversations with a user. While it didn’t store conversation data to be used later on, its database of responses was very expansive which meant conversations with the bot would feel fresh and natural (even though it did have a tendency to respond to questions with questions).

A big idea, honestly

SmarterChild spawned many other “chatter bots,” and for a while, it was incredibly popular. Eventually, like all internet trends, the popularity of chatter bots declined. When AIM’s userbase dropped off significantly in 2009 due to users swapping their messaging through social networks instead of chat clients, SmarterChild bit the dust. The argument of whether or not SmarterChild was true AI has long passed, yet its legacy lives on in Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

Cleverbot and Jabberwacky

Around the same time that SmarterChild was being developed, an AI scientist named Rollo Carpenter created a web application that uses an AI algorithm. He called it Cleverbot and released it to the public in 1997. It was a derivative of another AI experiment that he spent 10 years working on called Jabberwacky. Both of these web applications are still available online.

What makes Cleverbot interesting is that it stored responses and effectively “learned” from user interactions. Everything inside of its database came from users, and its database has grown incredibly large over the past two decades.

Eugene Goostman