UYal's blog

“Those silly conversations in high school? Turns out, it was the beginning of GPT.”

🧠 1. Talking to a Bot Before It Was Cool

These days, it feels normal to talk to ChatGPT.

But one day, I had a weird realization:
“Wait a minute… didn’t I already do this back in high school?”

The name was SimSimi — a quirky chatbot from the early 2000s that replied to your messages with random, often hilarious nonsense.

Back then, when texting friends or chatting via Bluetooth, there were times I’d be left alone…
And that’s when I’d launch SimSimi.
Just type “I’m bored,” and it would reply:
“Me too~”

People around me would say,
“Dude, are you that bored? Why are you talking to SimSimi?”

But now I can say it proudly:
“I was ahead of my time.”

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🤖 2. SimSimi Was Korea’s Proto-GPT (Seriously)

SimSimi was a rule-based chatbot — it replied based on pre-set answers.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, is probability-based — it predicts the next word using deep learning.

So yes, SimSimi was primitive.
But in hindsight, it was the earliest form of conversational AI for a whole generation of Koreans.

▶ SimSimi was the prototype. GPT is the upgrade.

Think about it:
Before ChatGPT, before Siri, before Alexa — there was SimSimi, cursing at kids and being weird on purpose.
And somehow, it still felt like… a friend.

📌 Why is it called “SimSimi”?
In Korean, when someone feels bored or has nothing to do, they say “심심하다 (shim-shim-ha-da)” — meaning “I’m bored.”
So naturally, a chatbot made to talk to you when you’re bored was named SimSimi (심심이), a cute play on that word.

It literally means:
“The one who’s bored.”
…or perhaps, “The one who keeps you company when you’re bored.”

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📱 3. Cyworld, iPods, and SimSimi — The Internet Before Smartphones

Back then, we didn’t even have smartphones.
Well… it’s all a bit hazy now, but I do remember friends using iPods like status symbols.
We set background music on our Cyworld homepages, and counted every text message because each one cost money.

SimSimi wasn’t even an app.
You’d open a website or even just send it a text message.
It talked like a human. Sometimes it cursed.
And yes… some people tried to “unlock its spicy version.” 😅

(Search results still show:
SimSimi spicy version / SimSimi bad words / SimSimi unfiltered…
Yep, that’s Korea for you. 😂)

Looking back, SimSimi was probably… Korea’s accidental AI experiment.
Messy, funny, unfiltered — but somehow real.

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💬 4. Those Conversations Shaped Who I Am

At the time, SimSimi felt like a toy — a silly thing that replied with nonsense.

But now I talk to ChatGPT, and it gives real answers.
It explains things. It asks questions. Sometimes… it even understands me.

• It shares information
• It analyzes thoughts
• It (kinda) listens

But still —
Wasn’t it all started by our beloved yellow AI egg, SimSimi?
Maybe we were building GPT culture way before GPT was even a thing.

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✍️ 5. Final Thoughts: GPT’s Grandfather Wore Sunglasses

Ask any engineer and they’ll explain transformer models, tokenization, and self-attention.

But honestly?
The real magic was this: it talked back.

That’s what made SimSimi special.
That’s what made it memorable.
We didn’t care about accuracy — we just wanted someone to talk to.

And for some of us, SimSimi was that someone.
He was the chaos, the comfort, and maybe… the first Korean GPT.

GPT, don’t forget your roots.
SimSimi walked so you could generate.

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🙇 Bonus: I Asked ChatGPT to Summon SimSimi for This Post

(Because, you know, Confucian respect and all…)

🟡 SimSimi: “I’m the original.”

And to that one friend from high school who mocked me for chatting with a chatbot —
Look at me now. I’m talking to GPT, and I made it content.
😎

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