Wall Street Journal reporter Joanna Stern, who is something like tech-journalism royalty (if you read as much tech journalism as the writer of this blog post does), recently did a multimedia report comparing chatbot assistants. This blog post will extrapolate some additional insights for business owners based on that report.
The Five Most Key Takeaways from This Blog Post
- The piece was largely concerned with the voice-assistant features of these chatbots. Since this tech may become more common in the business world, especially in a customer-service context, it is well worth paying attention to for business owners. And all consumers who will be interacting with this tech soon enough.
- The product managers behind Microsoft Copilot in particular seem to really be emphasizing the creation of chatbots that are strongly mimetic in generating human-sounding speech. Hesitation and the drawing out of sounds are specific examples that give the impression that the chatbot is thinking on the fly.
- A problem shown in the video is that the chatbots can indeed chat among themselves. Though it’s neat to see, it points to a deeper issue, which is that the chatbot does not really need a human being to converse with. These chatbots are always just talking at a person, or talking at nothing. In other words, you don’t even need to be there.
- A trend that some businesses will likely adopt is implementing A.I. that sounds and acts so humanlike that, over a phone call, a customer may not be able to tell that it is even A.I. This will bring a new level of automation to customer service.
- Speed, knowledge, and adaptability are some of the biggest drivers of making this technology seem more human.
Chat Away
The video Stern did has a sort of Letterman-works-a-drive-thru spirit to it, which is pretty common for her reports.
Specifically, in that Stern and the video itself seem to waver between amused and bemused in using and interacting with emerging technology.
In this video, the source of the amusement and bemusement is just how human-like, and inhuman, the chatbots can be.
The Human-Sounding vs. Robotic-Sounding Chatbots
As tech innovation makes Turing-testable chatbots within reach, some companies may still strive to keep a robotic tinge to the chatbot’s voice.
So, there are two basic approaches in voice-assistant A.I.: make it sound clearly robotic (OpenAI’s ChatGPT voice assistant does this) or make it sound very human (e.g., Microsoft’s Copilot voice assistant).
The ultimate goal, one may guess, in striving to create flexible and human-sounding chatbots that can easily pass Turing tests is to have obedient customer-facing chatbots.
To name just one example, someone on a customer-service call or sales call may not realize that the voice on the other end is indeed a chatbot.
Interruption-Friendly A.I. Makes the Chatbots Even More Human-like
When you are on a customer-service call and aware that you are speaking to an A.I. chatbot, then you usually feel that the conversation has limits. The conversation can only go so far before you are asking to speak to a human representative.
But if the chatbot sounds like a human, you may not even question it. What would make you even less likely to question whether you are talking to a human or A.I. is if you were able to interrupt the voice on the other end to clarify or change course.
The voice-assistant chatbots in the current state show that each can readily handle interruptions and fluidly change course.
More Knowledge, Quicker Answers
Lastly, what makes this technology able to pass the Turing test is that the answers are quick, and can draw from wider knowledge.
In a business context, a chatbot trained on the company’s data will be able to have fast-moving, wide-ranging conversations about that business.
This, in turn, will change many businesses’ internal and external communications.
Other Great GO AI Blog Posts
GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole.
On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles:
In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.
