1998: Koko the gorilla, student of American Sign Language and surrogate mother to orphaned kittens, holds the first-known live, interspecies internet chat.
America Online, then the gorilla of internet service providers, got plenty of mileage out of the stunt. It didn’t hurt Koko’s benefactor, the Gorilla Foundation, either, which saw the publicity as an opportunity to call attention to the plight of man’s closest relative.
Koko, a lowland gorilla who has lived in captivity her entire life, has been the face of the Gorilla Foundation for over 30 years. She was taught American Sign Language in her infancy by her trainer, Penny Patterson, making her one of the few (but not the only) primates capable of communicating, albeit in a very simplified form, with humans.
According to Koko.org, Koko understands approximately 2,000 words in English. Another of the foundation's lowland gorillas, Michael, was taught to understand English and sign as well. He died in 2000.
Koko also raised the gorilla "cute factor" by the power of four by adopting and caring for several kittens, which Patterson says shows "she's just as much a person as we are."
Roughly 8,000 AOL subscribers joined the chat, which featured Koko, who signed her answers; Patterson, who interpreted them; and an AOL chat facilitator.
As the transcript clearly shows, Koko’s responses were a bit vague, but no more inane than some of the drivel littering Facebook pages these days.
Not everyone was impressed, some AOL audience members apparently expecting Koko to hold forth in Shakespearean English. (She didn't.)
Koko made a second visit to cyberspace in November 2000, in another AOL webcast. By then, the commercial possibilities of the web were firmly established, so there was a web store selling Koko bric-a-brac, too.
Source: Various
See Also:*
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Google's Armstrong to Run AOL: Has He Lost His Mind?
Google Search Deal Slips Through Yahoo's Fingers — Is AOL Next?
Dec. 4, 1998: Midwife to the Int'l Space Station
Oct. 28, 1998: President Signs New Copyright Law
Sept. 18, 1998: ICANN Takes Over Running the Internet
Sept. 7, 1998: If the Check Says 'Google Inc.,' We're 'Google Inc.'
Feb. 4, 1998: Gates Gets Creamed
Jan. 29, 1998: A Warning on Nicotine, Straight From the Horse's Mouth
April 27, 1981: Say Hello to the First Personal Computer Mouse
