Twenty years ago, my partner Carol Core Benson and I hosted the first Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp at the Computer History Museum with just six attendees—a humble start to something that became much bigger. Last weekend, I returned to CHM and stepped into the future: enjoying a special exhibit on chatbots and AI that left me wishing I’d recorded it all. Here’s why you should visit too.
My visit this time was to see the special exhibit at the museum about Chatbots – which is really excellent! The star of the exhibit was a humanoid chatbot with an eerily lifelike face—think sci-fi movie vibes. I asked it about the weather, and it responded with a smooth voice and a sly grin, making me wonder if it knew more than it let on. The eye movement was mesmerizing! It’s the kind of thing you have to see (and hear) to believe.
One of the fun things for me in the exhibit was a display of some of the most important chip technologies of the AI era: Nvidia H100 and Google TPU.
The Nvidia H100—think of it as the muscle behind today’s AI boom—was shockingly huge, dwarfing older chips I’d seen. Next to it sat Google’s TPU, a sleek custom job built to power everything from search to self-driving cars. Seeing them up close made me realize just how much raw silicon fuels our chatbot conversations. The photos below don’t do the exhibit justice but give you the flavor of it.
Another fun exhibit is a working demonstration of an IBM 1401, one of the early computers which really helped drive IBM’s success. Lovingly maintained by CHM volunteers, it’s another time machine trip back to a much earlier era in computer history.
I really enjoyed my visit and marveled at the quality of the exhibits at the wonderful museum of technology. If you’re anywhere near the San Francisco Bay Area, carve out an afternoon for CHM. It’s not just a museum—it’s a time machine. Let me know what you think of that chatbot face!