Not sure?
I do not blame you, they have suddenly become very smart indeed.
A few weeks ago I had a cause to submit a problem I was having with a web service via their website. A very helpful bloke came back to me almost immediately with a response, and we interacted as he worked me step by step through the problem, to a solution. Very well done, except the solution did not work, so I jumped back on and went through it again, with a different, very polite digital helper, referring back to the previous conversation, which he called up, and asked a few slightly different questions, and proposed a slightly different solution, which did work.
About half way through the second conversation, it occurred to me that I was probably ‘talking’ to a very good ‘chatbot’.
My brain tells me I was talking to a highly developed set of algorithms, my heart tells me it was really two people who really cared about my problem and were committed to helping me fix it.
A so called ‘chatbot’ is a demonstration of the advances made in machine learning we keep hearing about, and seeing via Apples Siri, and her sisters, and the various messaging apps, translation and transcription services popping up seemingly everywhere.
It is pretty clear that they are rapidly taking over in all sorts of areas, almost by stealth, simply because they are becoming so good, so quickly, and we are welcoming the invasion, if we see it.
I am currently working with a client with a series of significant challenges, one of which I realised while thinking about this post, is perfectly suited to a chatbot. Might take a while, and be way beyond the current scope of their thinking, but watch this space.
