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There is a lot of hype about chat bots but let's not confuse that for usage. Tell me what chat bot you use on a regular basis? To me, chat bots seem like a ste

by zaidf 10y ago

There is a lot of hype about chat bots but let's not confuse that for usage. Tell me what chat bot you use on a regular basis? To me, chat bots seem like a step backward, at least for the use cases I've seen them applied for.

niftich 10y ago
Kik's a chat app and only a chat app (ie. they don't have a bunch of other properties that receive traffic like Google or Facebook) so this is what they've got, and what they have to work with. They can use them to keep people within their app and track where they go to afterwards. They're gambling on the fact that bots will set their platform apart from all the other chat apps. Of course, now, everyone else also has bots. But the article is about how they did it first (out of the "western" chat apps).
skyyler 10y ago
I use a bot in Telegram called Nate. It's in a group chat and does all sorts of useful things, from Urban Dictionary lookups to wolfram alpha evaluations to spamming cat pictures.
AJ007 10y ago
I think there is a two part thing going on here, besides a lot of PR hype cycle echo chamber. a) The anticipation that AI will be good enough to understand an instruction set through sentences. In some cases it already is. b) Text isn't so much the interface but audio-voice interfaces are. The stuff from A) combined with voice recognition. It is somewhat weird because Siri has been around for a while, Google voice recognition/search has been around for a while and been really good. Maybe the big aha moment was Amazon letting users actually input commands like ordering a product rather than getting dumped on search results for the web page to do it. If the whole chat-voice-smart assistant thing is a winner takes all market, that winner probably replaces Google in mass market use cases for search. That is a really big deal and companies are salivating over the possibility. Perhaps another factor is because other companies don't really have a knowledge graph like Google's, they are letting third party developers plug in. So, the big tech companies have their products commercially available already and are being used by lots of people, the small tech companies have stuff they have been working on and are joining the hype cycle in hopes of being acquired. So in summary the larger story is "chat bot" really = AI voice assistant which is plausibly the next Google eclipsing platform, and about as massive of a deal for the tech industry as the smart phone and self driving car.
- AznHisoka 10y ago
  So you think people will use voice to do general informational queries like what's a cure for asthma? Not just navigational queries like how to go to the theater?
- pcmaffey 10y ago
  This is the theory. And I don't think you're wrong at all in analyzing the motives/endgame here. But there are reasons texting arose as a preferred alternative to voice. Audio interfaces will win in cars, possibly homes and other well-defined private spaces. But text is ubiquitous and visual interfaces are so much faster, as audio is limited by its linear dimension. No doubt, voice control will be a huge market, but I think the idea is more alluring than the reality will prove.
phamilton 10y ago
Slack deploy bot plus an internal bot or two we use for user support.
throwwit 10y ago
Hello! and welcome to Moviefone!... (2016)

by zaidf 10y ago

niftich 10y ago

Kik's a chat app and only a chat app (ie. they don't have a bunch of other properties that receive traffic like Google or Facebook) so this is what they've got, and what they have to work with. They can use them to keep people within their app and track where they go to afterwards. They're gambling on the fact that bots will set their platform apart from all the other chat apps. Of course, now, everyone else also has bots. But the article is about how they did it first (out of the "western" chat apps).

skyyler 10y ago

I use a bot in Telegram called Nate. It's in a group chat and does all sorts of useful things, from Urban Dictionary lookups to wolfram alpha evaluations to spamming cat pictures.

AJ007 10y ago

I think there is a two part thing going on here, besides a lot of PR hype cycle echo chamber. a) The anticipation that AI will be good enough to understand an instruction set through sentences. In some cases it already is. b) Text isn't so much the interface but audio-voice interfaces are. The stuff from A) combined with voice recognition. It is somewhat weird because Siri has been around for a while, Google voice recognition/search has been around for a while and been really good. Maybe the big aha moment was Amazon letting users actually input commands like ordering a product rather than getting dumped on search results for the web page to do it. If the whole chat-voice-smart assistant thing is a winner takes all market, that winner probably replaces Google in mass market use cases for search. That is a really big deal and companies are salivating over the possibility. Perhaps another factor is because other companies don't really have a knowledge graph like Google's, they are letting third party developers plug in. So, the big tech companies have their products commercially available already and are being used by lots of people, the small tech companies have stuff they have been working on and are joining the hype cycle in hopes of being acquired. So in summary the larger story is "chat bot" really = AI voice assistant which is plausibly the next Google eclipsing platform, and about as massive of a deal for the tech industry as the smart phone and self driving car.

AznHisoka 10y ago
So you think people will use voice to do general informational queries like what's a cure for asthma? Not just navigational queries like how to go to the theater?
pcmaffey 10y ago
This is the theory. And I don't think you're wrong at all in analyzing the motives/endgame here. But there are reasons texting arose as a preferred alternative to voice. Audio interfaces will win in cars, possibly homes and other well-defined private spaces. But text is ubiquitous and visual interfaces are so much faster, as audio is limited by its linear dimension. No doubt, voice control will be a huge market, but I think the idea is more alluring than the reality will prove.

phamilton 10y ago

Slack deploy bot plus an internal bot or two we use for user support.

throwwit 10y ago

Hello! and welcome to Moviefone!... (2016)