AI unmasked: Have chatbots failed?

sasha uritsky

Oct 28, 2019

It is becoming increasingly popular to say that chatbots have failed and are overhyped.

While it is true that in many cases expectations from chatbots significantly exceed the results on the ground, the anticipation of chatbots’ demise are somewhat premature.

One of the main problems for chatbots is that the market is inundated with low quality solution providers who deliver low quality results. This happened because conversational AI seems to have low entry barriers. Unlike other recent technological darlings such as space technology or renewable energy, conversational AI is purely software and therefore does not require vast sums of initial investment.

What this approach is missing however, is that conversational AI, in addition to being a software, also requires an accurate understanding of how language works. And there is a limited number of people in the world that do have such understanding.

When conversational AI is delivered by AI experts who understand the way human language works, the results are good and convincing, just as how you would expect them to be.

Suffering from unsatisfactory product quality is a common problem for many new and emerging industries. The rules of the market dictate that most of the low quality players will eventually disappear. Poorly created chatbots will therefore not be around for too long.

See how a chatbot will help your businessnmodes.com

Interested in reading more? Check out our other blogs:

The Advantage of Social Engagement for Business, in Simple Words

Much is being said about social networks and their importance for businesses. The amount of analysis, explanations, and advice keeps on growing, while the matter is being investigated from every possible angle, real and imaginary.

As for me, the need for businesses to market and sell on social can be explained by a simple argument.

Here it is.

The principle advantage of social networks for a business over other mediums is in the social networks’ potential to build trust. Traditional marketing mediums, such as TV, newspapers, internet, radio, etc. are not designed to build trust. They are information channels, or scaling vehicles, or sales means, but their primary goal is not to build trust. Social networks, on the other hand, are exactly this - a trust building tools.

And herein lies their biggest advantage in today’s market. The endless variety of options consumers have and the ever growing dissatisfaction with traditional aggressive marketing methods, such as commercials or banners, means that creating trust between businesses and their audiences is now the most efficient way to attract customers. The way that guarantees long-term sustainability and growth.

This is, simply put, the reason for businesses to embrace the social.

The Automation Is Coming

A close look at the history of humanity leaves us with no choice but to admit that the majority of jobs as we know them now will be transferred to automated systems. This is part of the technological and scientific progress our civilization is undertaking and it is irreversible.

Artificial intelligence became mainstream in 2016. For the first time artificial intelligence is not only available to big companies like Google, Amazon or Apple, but to the majority of businesses worldwide. Startups have started building products and services using artificial intelligence en masse.

The essence of artificial intelligence is massive, intuitive computing power: machines so smart that they can learn and become even smarter. The machines are becoming quicker and more nimble. They cover wider range of conversation topics. They now connect to robotic systems and online interactive systems. There is literally very little they cannot, or will not be able to, do as applied to industrial workforce.

With all the good that’s going to come with automation, we are suddenly faced with a new problem: the elimination of many low and middle class jobs. Many jobs that have already been severely impacted by computers (manufacturing, administrative support, retail, and transportation) will continue to diminish. In the nearest future routine-based jobs (telemarketing, sewing) and work that can be solved by smart algorithms (tax preparation, data entry keyers and insurance underwriters) are most likely to be eliminated.

What to do? It is fruitless to fight automation, we need to find ways to work with automation rather than against it.

The solution is to become more creative as species. Creativity is the natural advantage of humans over machines. Automation is about to change the course of the world, it’s going to be a great disruptor and impact the workforce like nothing we’ve seen before. We can sit around and gradually become obsolete, or accept the challenge and use the tool of creativity, which we are in unique possession of, to maintain our superiority.