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发帖数: 7316 | 1 https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/why-might-soon-text-robots-1
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The robots are coming — to help run your life or sell
you stuff — at an online texting service near you.
In coming months, users of Facebook's Messenger app, Microsoft's Skype and
Canada's Kik can expect to find new automated assistants offering
information and services at a variety of businesses. These messaging "
chatbots" are basically software that can conduct human-like conversation
and do simple jobs once reserved for people. Google and other companies are
reportedly working on similar ideas.
In Asia, software butlers are already part of the landscape. When Washington
, D.C., attorney Samantha Guo visited China recently, the 32-year-old said
she was amazed at how extensively her friends used bots and similar
technology on the texting service WeChat to pay for meals, order movie
tickets and even send each other gifts.
"It was mind-blowing," Guo said. U.S. services lag way behind, she added.
Online messaging has become routine for most people, offering more immediacy
than email or voice calls, said Michael Wolf, a media and technology
consultant. Messaging services are now growing faster than traditional
online social platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, according to research
by Wolf's firm, Activate.
And experts say messaging bots can handle a wider range of tasks than apps
offered by retailers and other consumer businesses. In part, that's because
bots can recognize a variety of spoken or typed phrases, where apps force
users to choose from options on a drop-down menu. Reaching a chatbot can be
as simple as clicking a link in an online ad or scanning a boxy bar code
with a smartphone camera. A special-purpose app requires a download and
often a new account sign-up.
"Bots are the new apps," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last month.
Microsoft has just created new programming tools for businesses to build
bots that will interact with customers on Skype, the Microsoft-owned
Internet voice, video and messaging service.
Facebook is widely expected to unveil similar tools for its Messenger chat
service at the company's annual software conference starting Tuesday. It's
already partnered with a few online retailers and transportation companies
so consumers can use Messenger to check the status of a clothing purchase
from online retailer Zulily, order car service from Uber or get a boarding
pass from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
At those services, automated chatbots handle some interactions, with
supervision from human operators. Similarly, Facebook has been testing a
digital assistant called "M'' — sort of like Apple's Siri or Microsoft's
Cortana — that can answer questions or perform tasks like ordering flowers
in response to commands on Messenger. It uses a combination of artificial
intelligence and input from human overseers.
Another messaging service, Kik, which is popular among U.S. teenagers,
opened a new "bot shop" last week. Kik users can talk to bots that will
answer questions about the weather, show funny videos or help with online
shopping. Slack, a messaging service used by businesses, has partnered with
Taco Bell to introduce a "Taco Bot" that helps Slack users order ahead for
meals at a local outlet.
In Asia, many smartphone owners are used to playing games and buying items
through messaging services like WeChat, which claims 700 million active
users. One in five WeChat users has added bank or credit card information so
that person can check balances, pay bills or send money to friends,
according to the Andreesen Horowitz venture capital firm.
Tech experts are particularly eager to see what Facebook does with Messenger
, since its 900 million users make it the world's second biggest chat
platform after WhatsApp, which claims 1 billion users. Facebook bought
WhatsApp in 2014.
Both are free to users and don't produce much revenue for Facebook. But if
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has given WhatsApp's co-founders leeway with
their service, executives have signaled they are increasingly looking for
ways to make money from Messenger.
Although Facebook has not ruled out advertising on Messenger, analyst Ken
Sena of the Evercore investment firm says a more immediate revenue source
could be fees from businesses, such as hotel and travel companies offering
to provide reservations and other services through the chat app.
With the help of artificial intelligence programs that learn from
interactions, Sena said in a recent report, chatbots "are becoming scarily
good" at carrying on human-like conversations.
Or sometimes just scary. Microsoft last month shut down an experimental
chatbot , known as Tay, after malicious Twitter users taught the program to
repeat racist and sexist statements. Undeterred, the company has pledged to
learn from the experience and build better software in the future. | u****q
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