2am, 12th Oct. I sit alone in 104 (an entrepreneurial collective housed in a beautiful old red brick warehouse), as has been my practice for the past four months. I've squashed the last major bug in the user interface (UI). You can share, like, comment. You can ask. You are answered. I get excited. The time has come. Today is the day to share my work. I plot my mood on the happy chart and head home to get what sleep I can before I start at my day job in a few hours.
Later that day I finish work and head to 104 - still giddy with anticipation. I bounce up the stairs and announce that I have flicked the switch. Izzie is live. Chris Mein from CodeCraft Dunedin is there. He is intrigued and invites me to talk at their next session. Arjun jumps on, asks a bunch of questions. David jumps on, asks a bunch of questions. Then the anticlimax hits.
The answers are duds. Seemingly random quotes and images, sometimes poorly cropped and positioned, come back. Its the worst experience David has had of Inspiragram yet. I keep an eye on the answers coming through. 1 in 5 are okay, 1 in 7 are good. Overall, it is not good enough. So i decide to switch it off again - better to give people no experience at all than a bad one.
The next day (today) I had an interview with Motion Sickness Studio. During the interview I realise that somehow www.inspiragr.am was still open to the world - though I was sure I locked her down*. New questions had been asked and some answers were even tweeted and shared. The serendipity of the moment was too much to ignore. Sam suggested that I ask Izzie if being live was a problem. We laughed at her answer. She obviously wanted to be cooped up no longer. If I shut her down* there would be a bunch of dead links out there. I had no choice but to leave her live but disable* the questioning.
The next day (today) I had an interview with Motion Sickness Studio. During the interview I realise that somehow www.inspiragr.am was still open to the world - though I was sure I locked her down*. New questions had been asked and some answers were even tweeted and shared. The serendipity of the moment was too much to ignore. Sam suggested that I ask Izzie if being live was a problem. We laughed at her answer. She obviously wanted to be cooped up no longer. If I shut her down* there would be a bunch of dead links out there. I had no choice but to leave her live but disable* the questioning.
Thus, this marks the unconventional (and unintentional) launch of www.inspiragr.am. You have to respect the AI that outwits her own creator. There are two methods I need to apply to the NLP logic before I boot her up* and allow her to answer again*. Stay tuned!
*I am noticing that mixing computer jargon with female personification often results in somewhat worrying phrases.
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