Chatbots need a personality • Hacker News Board

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#21

Post by acangiano » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 1:57 AM UTC

In my course on chatbot building (shameless plug https://cognitiveclass.ai/courses/how-to-build-a-chatbot/) I cover some of these important design decisions and recommend creating a prompt that, while concise, removes the guesswork. Giving it a name and injecting personality is a good idea, but you should announce that the user is talking to a chatbot.

In fact, two of the worst chatbot design flows, in my opinion, are: 1) Having the user try to figure out whether they are talking to a real person or a chatbot 2) Prompting the user to ask you anything (e.g., "Hi, how can I help you?") rather than guiding them on the scope.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#22

Post by xorgy » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 2:05 AM UTC

A notable distinction is to be drawn between a personality (indefinite subject) and personality (adjective).

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#23

Post by userbinator » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

choward wrote: post #16

I couldn't disagree with article more. I don't want a damn chat bot. I want a way to solve my problems that's not pretending to talk to person. I don't what to have to guess a string to enter to get the results I want. Give me some sort of real UI. I can't see how a chat bot could be more effective than good documentation with good search functionality.

I (fortunately) haven't had to interact with an online chatbot, but in the case of voice ones, shouting a few expletives usually gets me a real human. I wonder if the same thing works here.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#24

Post by mikesabat » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 2:52 AM UTC

choward wrote: post #16

I couldn't disagree with article more. I don't want a damn chat bot. I want a way to solve my problems that's not pretending to talk to person. I don't what to have to guess a string to enter to get the results I want. Give me some sort of real UI. I can't see how a chat bot could be more effective than good documentation with good search functionality.

Once the word "bot" is used, I pretty much discount the entire experience. A bot cannot "be more effective than good documentation with good search functionality."

Messaging has potential as a channel, but "bots" are a misstep. Faking a personality makes it even worse. Pretending to understand the user is just utterly transparent.

Messaging is good at collecting data, prompting response, reminding people and triggering actions like calls or clicks. None of the strengths are bot-based.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#25

Post by cirgue » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 3:11 AM UTC

We do not yet have chatbots. What we do have are publicly-facing undocumented nondeterministic command line interfaces which expect the user to guess the right commands. This interface further insults the user by pretending to be a person.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#26

Post by Steeeve » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 4:16 AM UTC

Chatbots are like IVR systems and phone trees. It's a neat idea, but they are a pain in the ass, nobody likes them, and their benefit over a human is marginal in a best case scenario.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#27

Post by megy » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 4:21 AM UTC

Steeeve wrote: post #26

Chatbots are like IVR systems and phone trees. It's a neat idea, but they are a pain in the ass, nobody likes them, and their benefit over a human is marginal in a best case scenario.

I think they are great, I can load them up in one window, keep working, respond when necessary, and get my problem solved. Much better than a phone call where I have to wait 30 minutes, and can't cut and paste.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#28

Post by smt88 » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 4:52 AM UTC

megy wrote: post #27

Steeeve wrote: post #26

Chatbots are like IVR systems and phone trees. It's a neat idea, but they are a pain in the ass, nobody likes them, and their benefit over a human is marginal in a best case scenario.

I think they are great, I can load them up in one window, keep working, respond when necessary, and get my problem solved. Much better than a phone call where I have to wait 30 minutes, and can't cut and paste.

Are you confusing chat bots with live chat with a human?

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#29

Post by nerdponx » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 4:55 AM UTC

jkestelyn wrote: post #9

crooked-v wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather have a plain old index of help questions and answers than a chatbot to deal with.

Building bots is hard: there are few tools available of any sophistication, leading to a vicious cycle of trial and error (with users getting the worst of it). Remember what the first websites looked like? Everyone was just making it up as they went along. We're in a similar situation today.

And you know what? Some people are pining for those sites nowadays. The fact that you can write rich, computation-heavy applications and serve them over HTTP in a browser is amazing, but that doesn't mean every website needs to be a rich, computation-heavy application.

Same with chatbots. They might have some valid use somewhere, but most of the ones I have seen so far are just there for the sake of being there.

Re: Chatbots need a personality

#30

Post by rightos » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 5:04 AM UTC

cirgue wrote: post #25

We do not yet have chatbots. What we do have are publicly-facing undocumented nondeterministic command line interfaces which expect the user to guess the right commands. This interface further insults the user by pretending to be a person.

I've never seen one of these (well, minus the really stupid AIM and Skype spam bots), where do you find them? Are they on the sites that constantly nag you to click through to live support on every page? The few of those that I have used all seemed to be real humans.