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I'm 59. Can someone post a link to a non-marketing explanation of bots as used in this article?

• mixedCase 10y ago
  Chat bots. As in virtual assistants. Ask them in natural language for something they're built to provide and they'll try to get it to you (and mostly fail).
  • a3n 10y ago
    Well, something a little more meaty. How do they get on a consumer's phone. Is that "OK Google" thing a chatbot? How do other bots get there. Is there a network protocol particularly associated with bots, or is most of it done on the device. Link?
    • mixedCase 10y ago
      No specific network protocol, no standards. They can be plugged into networks like FB Messenger, Telegram, Slack and so on. Some are straight-up independent apps. In Telegram for example all you have to do is to add the chatbot like another contact. Conceptually they're not very different from IRC bots except for having natural language processing rather than simple regex/command capabilities. Chat bots are associated with text, but Google Assistant and Siri are basically chat bots plugged into voice recognition and text-to-speech interfaces.
• reitanqild 10y ago
  Speaking as a Telegram user: Bots on Telegram can send and receive messages to you or a group. My most used bot is one who watches HN for breaking stories and send me a link to the story and the comments. Net result: Spend less time checking HN, confident that I'll see 100+ story even if they die before I take lunch or have to wait for something anyway. BTW: 100 is just an example threshold, you can send a message to the bot to set that to something else.