As has been publicized here on RMN, "they" roll out technology to consumers today that they originally designed and developed decades ago.
-NW

Jim Stone, Freelance Journalist

A reader wrote wondering "how AI suddenly advanced so rapidly". I'll tell you how
I modified this post to remove information I probably should not give out.

In 2003 I took an Amtrak and had to make a call to find out if Amtrak went to ******* ****** (just to be sure it did not). The woman I got ahold of was insightful, intelligent, had answers even about ******* and things you would not necessarily associate with a train ticket (small talk), it all seemed normal and I never suspected the woman was not real.

When the call was going to finalize, the woman identified herself as a voice program that was in testing. I was flabbergasted but then thought to myself, "Dragon naturally speaking" was working quite well in 1994, this is 10 years later plus more than a home PC most likely so it's a surprise compared to the crap you get by pushing buttons but I guess it's possible.

So how did AI come so far so fast??

It did not. Due to a test Amtrak was doing in 2003 that had me not even suspecting the voice on the phone was a computer, I think it's safe to say they had Chat GPT level AI for a while. Probably not under test at Amtrak (I doubt it was that advanced) but with no forewarning it was convincing. That is one of the reasons why I have said in the past that families should meet face to face occasionally, at least for holidays.