FLOATER CORPORATION
The attached video was made a few years ago. Through the magic of AI, it is narrated by me 30 years ago.
I built the first commercially available A.I. in the 90s. It was used in a personal finance program called Floater. Floater was a big leap in technology, there has never been a personal-finance program that duplicated its functionality. And since it was 30 years before any other commercial AI was available, no one can rewrite history and say it wasn’t an AI. People paid money for it and called it in an AI. However, in some marketing materials like below, I referred to it as ” Natural Intelligence”. The Floater engine could not speak a human language. it communicated through code and dialogues. The objective was not to pretend it was a real conscious entity. The objective was that it pretended it was the user when making decisions.
Floater was created during a time when many families were grappling with the financial strain of living on a single income. It was inspired by my own family’s experiences. I bought a house when I was 25. I was not fully aware of all the expenses that would come with this purchase. We had children and became a single income family. Floater’s AI Engine mimicked how I managed our finances, incorporating a feature called
“floating,” which allowed users to utilize funds still pending withdrawal—something financial institutions also did to maximize profits.
Floater’s AI factored in the timing of check clearances and salary deposits, alongside more subjective considerations like the “Embarrassment Factor.” This feature helped users prioritize payments based on social pressures, such as paying a dance teacher over a utility bill due to personal interactions.
I developed Floater’s AI based on my experience as a Principal Software Engineer, having worked at some of the most innovative companies in tech. Floater was groundbreaking as the first consumer product with AI, and though modern technology has caught up, no similar product has replicated its full functionality. If launched today with updated interfaces, Floater would still be a highly relevant product.
I developed Floater’s AI based on my extensive experience as a Principal Software Engineer, having worked at some of the most innovative companies in tech. Floater was groundbreaking as the first consumer product with AI, and though modern technology has caught up, no similar product has replicated its full functionality. If launched today with updated interfaces, Floater would still be a highly relevant product. #The image to the left was a parody of a popular television series at the time. This was not actual Floater marketing material.
Additionally, we developed “Floater for Business,” which garnered interest from small and mid-sized businesses. Unfortunately, at the time, the technology to integrate Floater with banking systems didn’t exist, but today, it would be even more powerful.
The AI, named “Hal,” was designed to think like its user—not as advanced as today’s AI in that it cannot understand language, but more advanced in that it does not use existing models. It mimics the user’s thought process.
The phrase ” history is written by the winners” is equally as true for the world of tech. Early on, Microsoft, led by Bill Gates, decided there should be only one software company. All the small niche companies were wiped out. The long-term consequences were that the world never saw some amazing developments made by small companies. Had Floater continued, at this point it’s AI would have advanced 30 years. The current AI craze would be old news.