Consumer
3 milestones in AI history
iRobot Roomba
iRobot released the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner that used sensors and algorithms to autonomously navigate and clean floors. At $200, it brought autonomous robots into millions of homes.
Apple Launches Siri
Apple introduced Siri as a built-in feature of the iPhone 4S — the first major voice assistant integrated into a mainstream consumer device. Users could ask questions, set reminders, and control their phone with natural speech.
ChatGPT: AI Goes Mainstream
OpenAI released ChatGPT, a conversational AI based on GPT-3.5 fine-tuned with RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback). It reached 1 million users in 5 days and 100 million in 2 months — the fastest-growing consumer application in history. People used it to write emails, debug code, brainstorm ideas, and a thousand other tasks.