What if I told you, you were speaking to a computer?
Shyam G
In today’s world, where every field is a cyborg - a chunk of its working parts is replaced by technology. Customer support has joined the bandwagon of industries that have been bitten by the tech-bug. Recently, Facebook opened its doors to Chatbots developed by independent organizations that could become a part of its messenger app.
View David A. Marcus’s (Vice President -Messenger Applications, Facebook) take on Chatbots here.
This is the first step in taking artificial intelligence to the common user. As a person deeply involved with technology, watching AI evolve from Arnie movies to the smartphone is fulfilling, to say the least. Humans have always known (and dreaded) the day when AI would replace them at work. This is because AI is programmable, efficient, consistent, and obedient - contrary to what Hollywood tells you.
What is a Chatbot?
Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.
But Chatbots may or may not be AI. Chatbots vary from simple rule-based engines to complex AIs that comprehend what you type in the chat interface.
Chatbots that have rule-based engines are a modern take on the annoying IVR—simple, straightforward functions that can be easily accessed, although they are long and cumbersome. They come with few options, are easy to use, and are more convenient than phone trees.
“Many businesses already have phone trees and they do work though most users get grumpy using them. Text based response trees are much easier and faster and that is what I expect a lot of early bot interactions to be. Sometimes with ability to chat with a live person”
— Josh Elman, Partner at Greylock
Artificial intelligence-based chatbots are more complex and are taught to make decisions based on inputs from a human. Typically, AI chatbots understand language. They do not require commands in a certain format and are designed to convincingly simulate human behavior, thereby passing the Turing test.
What is amazing about this is: these AI bots learn from conversations. Alice, for example, is a popular chatbot used by thousands of users around the world; it learns from the responses given by humans interacting with it and uses these to better itself. Give it a spin.
Some other famous examples of AI based Chatbots are Mitsuku and Cleverbot.
With the potential for Chatbots being endless, we could be looking at
- Customized news using a news bot: tell your bot what you’re looking out for in the news and it will find articles that suit you!
- Research bots: ask the bot a question and get instant information in whatever format you need (and you thought Wiki was the best thing ever for assignments?)
- Grocery bot: get help to pick out and order groceries for the week based on your diet plan and current health issues
- Personal finance bot - use the bot to manage your money better.
- Scheduling bot - set up meetings via the bot and ask for reminders
A bot that’s your friend?. In China, there is a bot called Xiaoice, built by Microsoft, that over 20 million people talk to.
In March 2016, Microsoft tried their hand at a public AI chatbot and opened it up to Twitter. True to their nature, the internet trolls turned the simple, child-like Tay into a genocidal, racist and hate-mongering machine. In one highly-publicized tweet, which has since been deleted, Tay said:
“bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have now. donald trump is the only hope we’ve got.”
In another, responding to a question, Tay said:
“ricky gervais learned totalitarianism from adolf hitler, the inventor of atheism.”
Needless to say, much embarrassment was caused and Tay was sent into retirement.
How Bot-sy is India?
India has gotten on the bandwagon in a hurry. PVR Cinemas has introduced a simple rule-based chatbot on its website; the next to follow was Bookmyshow for ticketing and ixibaba by Ixigo to answer all your travel queries.
Haptik is one company that is built on a chatbot that is both fun, and very pragmatic. Haptik is India’s first Conversational Commerce platform. It helps people get their everyday jobs done using a chat interface. To quote their website:
“A combination of Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Process & Machine Learning has helped us create technology that assists our assistants work a lot faster; while the bot learns every time a new query is answered.”
Don’t take my word for it. Try their iOS app and Android app.
Hate them or love them, one thing is certain - machines will one day rule the world. Their reign continues to grow, one industry at a time.
Shyam, from Projects, is our in-house tech-lover. A voracious reader, he stays up-to-date with what’s what in the tech world and, given his penchant for writing, contributes regularly to the Influx blog. Shyam has an engineering degree in computer science.