Episode 02: Where does AI kick in?

Voice assistants like Siri or Alexa know where the nearest
Italian restaurant is. But are they really intelligent? In
Episode 2, “AI and Us” looks at the history of artificial
intelligence: Eliza, the world’s first chatbot, was a sensation
in the 1960s and was even supposed to be used in psychotherapy.
But even today, machines still have difficulty holding a
meaningful conversation.


Humboldt experts Christian Becker-Asano, Martin Butz and Milica
Gašić explain why AI is reliant on the intelligence of
programmers and what technology is currently used to train
conversation machines.


The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation


Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more
than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time
conducting research in Germany. The Foundation maintains a
network of well over 30,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in
more than 140 countries worldwide – including 57 Nobel Laureates.


As part of the German government’s Artificial Intelligence
Strategy, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation can appoint a
total of 30 Alexander von Humboldt Professors for Artificial
Intelligence in the years up to 2024. These chairs are
contributing to work being done to comprehensively investigate
the opportunities AI offers for our future and to make use of
them. They will also help strengthen Germany’s standing as an
internationally attractive and influential location in this
important field.