Walking into the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, visitors are immediately greeted by the front desk. But hidden in the back is an alley leading up to one of the museum’s most interactive exhibits.
The Computer History Museum features a changing exhibit that switches focus every few months. However, the museum was closed for renovation until January. In November, before the closure, the “Chatbots Decoded: Exploring AI” exhibit was added. Now with its reopening, also comes the return of the chatbots exhibit.
Since its opening, the museum’s mission has focused on chronicling the history of digital innovation, and that is exactly what they did with the reopening of their AI exhibit. The exhibit includes the history behind past chatboxes and how they work. According to museum Vice President and Chief Curatorial and Exhibitions Officer Kirsten Tashev, the release of ChatGPT 3.5, one of the most advanced AI models, was the perfect opportunity to build the “Chatbots Decoded: Exploring AI” exhibit around not only the past but also the present and future impacts of innovation.
“We thought it [the rise of ChatGPT] was a perfect opportunity for the museum [to start developing an exhibit about AI chatbots],” Tashev said. “For this particular exhibit, we had recently changed the museum’s mission to be more about not just the past, but the continuum of past, present, future.”
Tashev said the exhibit is important because it forces visitors to acknowledge the future of AI in different industries like education. The exhibit uses features such as the “What’s Next” board where people can write their predictions for AI in the future; a documentary of experts on AI explaining how it can be used; and the history of the development of AI chatbots.
AI is often a point of contention, especially in education, because many people associate it with academic dishonesty. However, this has happened in history before, just with different technology.
“When calculators came out in the 80s, the exact same thing happened,” Tashev said. “Parents were panicked. Teachers were saying kids will cease to learn how to do math because of calculators, and then they found a way to incorporate it into education. … We’re saying maybe what will happen with the calculator will be similar to what will happen with ChatGPT.”
One of the most interactive features in the exhibit is Ameca, a human-like robot that interacts with visitors through a microphone and camera. Ameca is unlike most other chatbots because it knows that it is in a museum so it can reference exhibits in the Computer History Museum, such as the Google Earth interactive exhibit.
“[One time, this] little girl said, I got to see my home, and she’s like, six or seven years old,” Tashev said. “… And then Ameca said, Oh, you must have been using the Google Earth interactive exhibit.”
The AI exhibit gives opportunities not only for adults but also for teenagers to learn about what their future might look like.
“Teenagers are a hard audience to reach, but this [AI] is going to be really important to their future, so I think it’s filling a kind of need,” Tashev said. “And I see a lot of parents going with their teenage kids too because parents are curious about it too.”
Alysha Shaine, a teenager who visited the exhibit, said the experience made her feel more confident about the future, even with AI.
“I think the AI exhibit made me feel confident about the future because I got to see videos about how people are planning to use it to better society,” Shaine said.
Teenager Ryan Kymore said viewing displays can be fascinating when you are really interested in the topic, but the hands-on elements of the “Chatbots Decoded: Exploring AI” exhibit are what truly bring it to life.
“I am not normally a museum person, but because of all the interactive things — like Ameca — I was actually really interested and spent like two-plus hours there, which I have never done,” Kymore said.
