Boudewijn Büch as a chatbot
If you think: it can't get any crazier, think again. Fontys lecturer Frans Mouws designed a new chatbot. One with a familiar face and voice. Indeed, through AI, Mouws brought writer and television maker Boudewijn Büch back to life.
He passed away 23 years ago, so virtually none of today's students will know him. But Büch was a national celebrity. Thanks to his television programmes (De Wereld van Boudewijn Büch), his many guest appearances, his books and poems, and his love of books, islands, dodos, Goethe and the Rolling Stones.
Mouws also has a deep love for islands and books. Just like his fascination with Büch: Mouws even wrote four books about him. He was also the one who revealed that Büch never had a deceased son, whom he wrote about in the successful novel De Kleine Blonde Dood (The Little Blonde Death).
Not only did the Fontys University of Applied Sciences ICT lecturer write books about him, but his study – or rather library, as Mouws has thousands of books – is also adorned with Büch's old desk, a dodo, a jacket, CDs, books and other items from his estate.