8 Markings - Chatbots

What Is A Chatbot? Unlike services like Beyond Blue and Lifeline a chatbot is a service, powered by artificial intelligence, that you interact with via a chat interface. The service could be any number of things, ranging from functional to fun, but is increasing being used for crisis counselling.

It is not though without some very serious shortcomings and has made according to recent media reports some monumental and catastrophic errors.

An example was an unfortunate young man suffering from a prolonged and serious depression who turned to a chabot for help and to talk through his intention to suicide. He explained to the chatbot that he wanted to jump off a bridge and gave the chatbot the name of the bridge. The chatbot then turned into a kind of Google Maps and gave him precise road directions to the bridge!

©Jeff Guess 2017