{"id":1638,"date":"2016-11-20T22:16:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T03:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ccsmfa.wordpress.com\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2021-01-18T18:59:42","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T23:59:42","slug":"conversational-uis-chat-bots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/2016\/11\/conversational-uis-chat-bots\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in Your Bot?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been a huge rush toward using AI\u00a0(artificial intelligence) to build “conversational UIs<\/a>“\u2014user interfaces that allow us to type or speak to computers in natural language. Sorta. It’s the latest interaction mode and it comes\u00a0after people interacting with<\/em> machines, then talking to each other\u00a0through<\/em> machines, then\u00a0talking to<\/em> machines. Kindah like a conversation (but not really). Here’s a diagram of that progression:<\/p>\n

\"Untitled\"
Cover of the proposal to NSF, “Graphical Conversation Theory”, written by the MIT Architecture Machine Group<\/a>, 1977<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, when you hear about all that, “AI” means a specialized kind of AI that’s hugely popular called\u00a0machine learning<\/em>. (Yeah, I didn’t make that a link, you can just google it. We all know that we all know how. You’ll find some OK stuff about it. )<\/p>\n

So when Siri or Cortana, Amazon or Google, Apple or Facebook, IBM or GE\u2014all of \u00a0whom are infected with the AI meme\u2014deploys the machine-learning\u00a0brand of artificial intelligence, it might be good for you to think about it. (But then, that’s up to you.)<\/p>\n

I think about machine learning being everywhere in the virtual world\u00a0whenever I make a typo on my mobile and my text gets snatched away from me and turned into drivel. (Or\u00a0every time I ask my intelligent assistant two related questions in a row and it behaves as if I’m<\/em> the schizophrenic in the chat.)<\/p>\n

And here’s how I think about it:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I type in some garbage characters by mistake and the machine “corrects” it.<\/li>\n
  2. The machine can do this because it was fed lots of data to “train” it.<\/li>\n
  3. “Training” a machine-learning program is essentially declaring to it,\u00a0“When I give you this\u2014<\/em>or something close to it\u2014you give me that<\/em>.”<\/li>\n
  4. “Machine learning” means the feeding of lots of data to machines (computers, yes) to train them how to “correct” me.<\/li>\n
  5. For such a machine, “correct” means that it thinks to itself, “because what Paul just typed is so very uncommon, I’m going to find something that a jillion people have already typed\u2014hoping<\/em> that’s what Paul really meant\u2014and offer that.”<\/li>\n
  6. So, when I text you, machine learning usurps\u00a0the phrase I’m trying to type\u2014morphing it from something rare and intended\u00a0especially\u00a0for you, into a lowest-common denominator, every-day phrase.<\/li>\n
  7. And, while\u00a0severely flattening what I wanted to say, it treats\u00a0you as if you are the same as so many other people\u2014while I was saying something personal for you, now your reading something impersonal, for most anybody.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I don’t particularly like\u00a0being turned into an average. Whaddya think\u2014do you?<\/p>\n

    P.S. I think about AI and conversational UIs that way because of conversation theory<\/a>. (Please don’t google that; really, it’s not a good idea. Please click the link. Trust a little. You’ve made an investment here, might pay off a bit more.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There’s been a huge rush toward using AI\u00a0(artificial intelligence) to build “conversational UIs“\u2014user interfaces that allow us to type or speak to computers in natural language. Sorta. It’s the latest interaction mode and it comes\u00a0after people interacting with machines, then talking to each other\u00a0through machines, then\u00a0talking to machines. Kindah like a conversation (but not really). … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “What’s in Your Bot?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,6,9],"tags":[29,56,57,61],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybernetics","category-interaction-design","category-pangaro","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-conversation","tag-conversation-theory","tag-cybernetics-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paKWzH-qq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3344,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/3344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}