I use Google’s Gemini all the time. I ask it questions about computer programming, politics, movies, geography, coffee makers, or pretty much anything I’m curious about.
The answers are nearly always very helpful and to the point. Its response to my questions are usually excellent summaries of what I would have achieved if I had spent a lot longer doing a Google search.
But unlike much of the hype I have been hearing and reading, I never get a sense that there is a human-like intelligence at work. Rather, it feels just like what it is — an algorithmic gathering and summation of information from various sources.
I remember when I started using Google search about twenty six years ago. It was extremely useful, but I never felt that there was “a person in the computer”. Rather, it felt like I was interacting with an algorithm, albeit one that had been tuned by humans.
Similarly, the advent of desktop publishing four decades ago felt useful, but not magical, even though it was a radical advance for the time. It was clear that my document was being typeset by an algorithm — an algorithm that was performing calculations based on information that had been fed to it by human beings.
I suspect that people will soon come to see AI bots like Gemini and its cousins in the same way. There is no magical “person in the computer”. Like Google search and desktop publishing before it, a chatbot is just another useful tool in our ever expanding human arsenal of useful tools.