Chatbots and the Uncanny Valley

The term “uncanny valley” was coined by notable robotics professor, Masahiro Mori, in 1970 to explain the phenomena of unease in the presence of humanoid robots. Mori, and other AI and robotics researchers since then, have noticed an interesting trend in which people start out with a positive view of robots but grow increasingly uneasy the more closely they resemble humans. Then at a certain point when the robots are practically indistinguishable from live persons, the unease subsides.

Much psychological thought has gone into this phenomenon but it is still unclear what exactly causes it. One thing is clear, however, when robots resemble humans but there’s something a little off, we notice it, and it creeps us out. This is one of the biggest problems facing artificial intelligence and robotics researchers today.

Though chatbots are not humanoid in appearance—they’re not machines at all, but rather, computer programs—the uncanny valley is still a phenomenon that has been observed with them.

A history of automated customer service

When companies first began using automated phone answering systems to more efficiently route calls, the voices were obviously robotic and the customer on the other end knew it was a machine. They knew what the system could and couldn’t do and it didn’t resemble a conversation between two humans in a way that made people uncomfortable. As time went on, however, these systems became more advanced and the line between machine and human were blurred. The majority of automated phone answering systems today still use a more monotone, robotic-sounding voice though the technology exists to make it sound more like a human.

The problem for chatbot developers

The first chatbots were simple programs that were able to respond with a handful of pre-written sentences. But as more artificial intelligence goes into the programming, chatbots are being developed that can engage in small-talk and can even simulate personality. While some may respond positively to this, others prefer their chatbots be more obviously robotic in their conversations. For chatbot developers, that means walking a fine line between creating chatbots that aren’t seemingly rude in their directness but not overly human-sounding either, at least until the technology advances enough to make chatbots indistinguishable from real humans.

Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com

Source: theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/uncanny-valley-digital-assistants/523806/

How To Use Chatbots To Generate More Leads

If you’ve ever had to call a customer support number, you’ve encountered that all-too familiar voice reading off a list of options and which numbers to press to record a response. They often ask a series of questions designed to either give you the information you need, or transfer you to the person who can best help you. Often they’ll automate the some of the process by getting your account number information so the live person won’t have to go through those routine questions at the start of the call. These digital phone assistants free up human resources and improve productivity for the live customer service agents. They’ve become commonplace so much so that we expect to get one when we call customer support and are surprised if we don’t.

Though there are still some that don’t like interacting with these phone robots, overall we have a positive view of them and they’ve becoming fairly accurate at getting us to the right person quickly. We also recognize the need for their existence.

The internet now has its own version of the automated phone assistant in the form of chatbots. Chatbots are designed to do the same kinds of things but they operate online, on mobile devices, and within messenger apps.

The challenge presented by chatbots

Just as customers were initially hesitant about the growing use of automated phone assistants, many have misgivings about chatbots preferring to speak or chat with real people. But just as automated phone assistants overcame these obstacles, chatbots will as well.

One issue people have with chatbots is that they’re too-robotic or impersonal. Chatbot developers are constantly working to counteract this stereotype by developing a chatbot with a pleasant personality and the ability to engage in some small talk as a human would.

How to best use chatbots on your website

User behavior suggests that consumers don’t appreciate chatbots that are overly intrusive or annoying. Chatbots shouldn’t show up on the homepage in the form of annoying pop-ups. On the other hand, you don’t want to bury them in a place customers can’t find them when they want to. The ideal use for a chatbot would be to try and anticipate when a customer is likely to have a problem finding information or to have a chatbot that can recognize based on user behavior (long pauses between clicks or frequent clicking between pages) and initiate communication then. In this way, website-based chatbots can be used to generate leads and conversions when they otherwise might have left the site in frustration.

Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com

Source: forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2017/05/25/bot-hype-how-to-use-chatbots-to-get-more-leads-for-your-site/#5976e9af24c1

Texting for Schools

Dear School Administrators,

There is a saying: if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. This idea is only used by tired and unprogressive people. If this idea had any grounds with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg, we probably still would be using horses and telegrams and carrier pigeons to deliver mail and messages.

Should Schools Use Texting?

It now leads to this pondering question: Should schools be texting? Given the atmosphere in which our educational facilities exist, the answer is a resounding yes! There are four areas where texting in educational facilities should be paramount.

(1) Among The Administrators

Administrators are current communicating with each other using emails, buzzers, public address systems, intercoms, and phones.

(2) Administrators To Teachers

Most of this communication is done through email, a costly and not so effective way during an emergency, or the not so cheap intercom and classroom phones. Credit must be given for schools having moved away from the messenger student (Or should it? some schools might still be using it!).

(3) Administrators To Parents

Most of this communication is done through message boards, phones, “bag-a-letter” (letters by students), and even the postman.

(4) Students To Administrators.

As a parent today, I would feel much more comfortable and assured if my son’s school has a push notification system that alerts its administrators. This could work effectively in many areas, even bullying, in order to send a preemptive strike against this type of behavior.

Indeed schools have a lot of information that needs to be received and sent out. They do their best with the archaic systems mentioned above and with websites, social media, and videos. I will say here that communication systems must be costing the taxpayers a lot and they are a tremendous drain on education funds!

Three cheers for the schools that communicate with their educators and administrators and with the parents and students. There seems to be a more dominant need for push notifications and alerts though. This came into focus

in the wake of some sad and bad things that happened in our schools that even made President Obama cry.

A Comfort Zone

Parents should not have to leave their hearts at the school gate every time they drop off their precious little bundles. Students, whether in college, high, middle, kindergarten, chartered or public school, should have at their immediate disposal the means to communicate information such as a suspicious bag, a suspicious individual, or a suspicious activity. If such a system exists, administrators would be able to alert law enforcement and sub-administrators and local security by this push notification system as well and respond with immediate, automatic prerecorded instructions. Hundreds of parents would be alerted to any emergency, all by the push of a button, instead of the old-fashioned and time-consuming telephone call to each parent. Herein lies the basis of a comfort zone for all.

Important Statistics

Schools should know that over 70% of K-12 parents ages 25-54 have smartphones, and 98% of them text.

So let’s get to it schools! You probably didn’t know that you could have a text system put in place that could do all the above and more including automatic responses to most questions parents, vendors, and other interested parties would ask. Case in point: what are your school hours? Instead of going to your web site or calling for that simple but important answer, I could text one number that would give me that answer. It is that simple: one number for thousands of two-way communications in automation using Artificial Intelligence(AI).

BIZTEXTER is Here

As I said, you probably did not know what was available to you, but now you do. BIZTEXTER, a patented AI tool, is the system for your school. It is cost effective, user-friendly, and can be administered for across the board effective communications. Warren Buffet said recently that AI will take over the world in the next 20 years and is well under way in driverless vehicles, etc. Schools and administrators, it is time to get with the program or education en-masse could become obsolete giving way to smaller and more manageable charter and private schools and even home school.

Please click on this banner for more information on the helpful platforms of BIZTEXTER.

Yours truly,

A Concerned Parent.

https://biztexter.com/cloud-texting