When interacting with generative-AI chatbots, their output seems random. Ask the same question three times, and get three different answers. But are they really random?

Computers are deterministic. Ask the same question three times, and get exactly the same answer. Chatbots run on computers. Computers can't generate true random numbers. So what's the story?

This led me to a series of interviews with a gen-AI chatbot to try and find the answer. These interviews are with a chatbot designed to generate computer code. Since chatbots are now being used for this purpose, you'd want the code to be as non-random as possible.

Follow along, there will be some interesting developments.

Session #1 For the first interview, I asked the chatbot the same question four times. The answers I got were: NO, MAYBE, SORT OF, YES.

Session #2 In this interview, we learn that the chatbot has a "Dial-a-Random" internal setting that controls the randomness of its answers. It's called Temperature. (Not to be mistaken for the physical temperature that we humans deal with.)

Session #3 It looks like knowing about the Temperature setting can be useful. Let's see what the chatbot has to say.

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The whole Gen-AI chatbot thing makes me nervous. There are going to be horror stories. Millions of lines of AI-written computer code, full of subtle bugs, that no one understands. Time saved, versus time lost looking for and fixing errors. There are privacy issues. Hackers and scammers will have a field day with this new tool. There will be stories about costly and embarrassing errors. Also, the loss of basic skills when Gen-AI replaces human thinking. Interview with a Chatbot - #1 - Randomness
Interview with a Chatbot - #2 - Say "please"
Interview with a Chatbot - #3 - Creativity
Interview with a Chatbot - #4 - Humor
Interview with a Chatbot - #5 - Trading places
Interview with a Chatbot - #6 - The Bottom Line
Interview with a Chatbot - #7 - How much is 2 + 2?
Interview with a Chatbot - #8 - How to break a chatbot