ShadBot Now Has Its Own Domain!
ShadBot Chat Screen
I purchased a new domain for ShatBot so I no longer need to embed it into this website which isn’t ideal since it runs on a completely different platform. If you want to go right to ShadBot and start asking questions without reading this entire blog click https://www.shadbot.bike to start exploring what it can do.
Some people might be asking, “why did you create an AI chatbot in the first place?” That is a legitimate question. There are a lot of concerns about AI these days, some of them are real and some are simply fear mongering from the media and elsewhere. I have a few reasons why I wanted to do this project.
To be completely honest with you here, my profession is software development. If I don’t embrace AI I will simply lose my career. Yes, one of the legitimate fears people have is that it will replace people in the workplace. So in order for me to continue working in software development I absolutely have to embrace AI to keep up with expected productivity because the developers who embrace AI will be a lot more productive in the workplace than those that don’t.
Because of this I knew I needed to do my own personal project to learn more about how AI works. The more I know about it’s internal workings the more I understand it and can detect it when I see it. I pondered on what this project could be for quite some time. Then it hit me! One day I was like, “Why don’t I create an AI tool for people into cycling?” More specifically the type of cycling I am into, BMX and Mountain Biking. Instead of just creating a useless project for learning something, which I have done many times before, I thought maybe I will create an actual tool that people can use.
What makes this even better is that I can continue to work on ShadBot and keep evolving it to make it better and by doing so it becomes more useful for others to use. As AI continues to evolve I can continue to learn and evolve my knowledge about the latest AI models.
But there are other concerns with AI. What about data centers, data collection, and the environmental impact? Those are all major issues right now. Trust me, at 59 years old I have seen a lot of technologies come into the world and disrupt things in a big way.
First, it was the computer itself. Yes, I am old enough to have been around when the first computers started making into the classroom. When I was in elementary school we had terminal computers that had a printout, not a screen, that we did assignments on. This was the late 70s. In order to use the computer there was a phone receiver. We had to call a number and stick the phone receiver into a device that allowed it to communicate with a giant computer located somewhere else. This giant computer likely took up an entire room somewhere and yes, it used a lot of energy.
Later came the desktop computer and with that, video game consoles. There was no mainstream Internet yet. People thought kids would grow up brain dead because of playing video games. Computers in homes and in the workplace could now increase productivity thus requiring fewer people to do the same amount of work. What’s interesting is that this created more jobs, those jobs just changed into something else.
These last 2 are the big technologies that cause more change than the previous 2 I mentioned. The main stream Internet (aka: world wide web) and not long after, the smart phone. Throw social media into that mix and boom!…we had a complete societal change! Not only has this caused massive disruptions in the workplace, it’s caused political upheaval, division, and a complete change in how humans interact with each other.
So here comes AI and all the same fears, along with some new ones, along with it. What I have learned from the past is that when a new technology comes along you either fully embrace it or get left behind. At least if you want to succeed and get by in this world we all live in. I don’t ignore the concerns, but I also know that processors continue to get smaller and more capable as does memory. I feel like the big data center issue is temporary and that eventually governments, under pressure from people, will regulate them as well as require them to use more renewable resources. This has happened in the past and I believe it will happen again.
I am very aware of the issues with AI. By embracing it I am more able to be a part of what it becomes and I am much less likely to be blindsided by it. That’s a long post about why I decided to do ShadBot. But since it’s now part of something I am very passionate about, bicycles, it is something I am excited to work on and continue to evolve. It’s now here for you to use and hopefully you find it beneficial, if not at least entertaining.
