Ever wanted to learn about Illinois from President Lincoln firsthand? An absurd question not long ago now is an actual opportunity for Illinoisians through the state’s use of artificial intelligence.
The Illinois Office of Tourism partnered with Matador in early June to release the first U.S. state AI travel guide to help people learn and explore Illinois from their phone.
Meet “Big Lincoln,” the handheld 16th President of the United States, who’s now telling you the best place to eat in town.
The AI president shares the same bobblehead look and name as Illinois’ official mascot, which has been featured in international mascot competitions in the past.
“He turns up to sports games, car races and everyone loves him,” Illinois Office of Tourism Deputy Director Daniel Thomas said. “What was interesting is Big Lincoln doesn’t speak. So, he’s a very thoughtful person and his persona is more about his legacy. We thought what is a great way to bring Lincoln to life?”
What can the AI president do?
Big Lincoln can answer direct questions about recommended places to eat, or more thorough questions about weather and multiple stops along the road trip.
The use of AI to answer questions for any traveler is what drew the attention of the states' tourism office, as 64% of tourists are turning to AI in some form to help complete their trip.
Thomas said he was skeptical of using ChatGPT early on, but decided now was the time to invest and make travel entertainingly practical for people coming to Illinois.
“The data and accuracy just weren’t as critical for me, so we wanted to take the time to really monitor how people were using it,” Thomas said. “What rose to the top for us is that people want to use it as an enhancement tool and younger generations want to ask it direct questions.”
Asking the bot certain questions about Springfield and the state, the AI misidentified Sen. Doris Turner as a State Representative. After speaking with Thomas, a change has already been made to the bot, which is still a work in progress to be accurate.
“It’s also a learning tool like an algorithm so while we’ve done nine months of testing, if things come up that are factually incorrect, we have the ability to kind of correct them as we go.” Thomas said. “For us it’s mitigated risk – we see it as an enhancement tool and there is risk with any tool.”
How much does the bot cost to operate?
After several months of testing and working with Matador, the AI tool costs $60,000 annually through a subscription basis to operate.
The AI is meant to be usable from any device during any time of day as a tool, so jobs at the Office will operate as normal working alongside the AI pocket companion.
It is worth noting chatbots based around ChatGPT use a lot of energy to live.
OpenAI's ChatGPT, the basis for Big Lincoln, is reported to consume over half a million kilowatt-hours daily, servicing approximately 200 million user requests. The consumption is larger than the daily energy usable of a U.S. household 17 thousand times over.
In a University of Washington interview with a computer engineering assistant professor, training an AI can consume 400 watts of power to operate and a similar amount to cool down – meaning the potential energy consumption to train a single AI is equivalent to the electrical consumption of 1,000 households in the states.
Where does the AI pull information from?
The AI president is powered by GuideGeek and is a custom version of the tool, which is built off of ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a model that interacts in a dialogue format and can keep conversations going, which trains the tool using reinforcement learning from human feedback. The persona of Lincoln was crafted by GuideGeek feeding the bot responses the historical figure would make: wise, thoughtful and straight to the point answers.
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The bot first collects information to use in response from the Illinois Office of Tourism website, before turning to previous conversations with humans and publicly available text to give an answer.
“GuideGeek has over 1,000 integrations for things like real-time flight data, weather and currency exchanges,” Matador CEO Ross Borden said in a statement.
Everyone knows ChatGPT bots will sometimes catch you off guard with just what it will spurt out. Borden says to curb the conversation going off track, guide rails in the system are set up so the conversation only stays on tourism.
The State Journal-Register tested those guard rails thoroughly and found them to work nine times out of 10. The personified Lincoln does a good job of politely steering the conversation away from his foot size or his favorite taco and back to tourism.
How can I try Big Lincoln?
To try "Big Lincoln," enjoyillinois.com is the place to go to find the virtual president. Look for the icon on the bottom right corner and from there users can type in questions about travel and tourism; in a few moments the bot can provide a broad overview of a multi-day trip, down to a specific recommendation based on the question.
Claire Grant writes about business, growth and development and other news topics for The State Journal-Register. She can be reached at CLGrant@gannett.com; and on X (Formerly known as Twitter): @Claire_Granted
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Big Lincoln: How Illinois is using lifelike Abraham Lincoln to help tourists, businesses
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