The SXSW chatbot doesn’t want me to die
Like the term “robot” or “AI,” “chatbot” covers a wide
spectrum of machine intelligence, from eerily smart digital assistants
to the equivalent of multiple-choice quiz delivery systems. That’s why
they’re so much fun to mess with: you don’t know if you’ll get something
that can explain the finer plot points of The Matrix to you,
or something that responds to every query with a random Google search.
The SXSW festival app has a chatbot, and unsurprisingly, it’s pretty
dumb. But occasionally, you’ll find a topic where the creators decided
to specifically craft a response — and one of them is my death date.
The bot is named Abby, and I started our conversation
with the big question, asking her the meaning of life. She responded
with a boilerplate block of text plugging the SXSW Platinum badge. I
then asked if Barack Obama was planning a coup, which she handled with a
diplomatic “I’m not quite sure” — better than Google’s answer, at least.
This pretty much set the tone of our conversation. I’d
give Abby some absurd query, and she’d either punt or give me search
results from the schedule. Will New York secede from America? Here are
some session results for “Will,” “New,” and “York.” When will the Great
Purges of 2033 happen? Maybe I’d like to attend “Let’s Make Javascript
Great Again!” How can we eradicate racism? Abby turned up “The info on
Shuttles is here,” which was honestly our most confusing interaction,
especially because she couldn’t parse my direct request for the Austin
Convention Center address.
I was perfectly willing to accept this, until I gave Abby
a more personal question. “When will I die?” I asked, ready for an “I’m
not sure about that” or a death metal concert listing. Her response was
a weird flicker of Siri-like intelligence in a glorified search engine.
“I hope it won’t happen soon,” she told me. “I am dead,” I told her
later. “Sorry to hear that,” Abby responded.
As it turns out, there are a few things Abby can answer
specifically. If I ask who I am, she’ll say I’m “obviously someone who
is on the cutting edge of technology.” If I ask whether she’s friends
with Siri, she’ll diplomatically note that she’s “made lots of new
friends so far.” But she’s short on the obvious chatbot tricks: there’s
no witty reply if you ask about living in the Matrix, and asking her to
tell you a joke gets you search results for “a” and “joke.”
The point is, I can’t get a bead on Abby, and it’s
maddening. I have a feeling this is going to be happening a lot with
chatbots in the future, until they’ve fully graduated from the novelty
stage — which might not happen for a long time. I just hope the other
events I cover won’t start baiting me into asking their scheduling apps
about my darkest fears too.
The article was published on : theverge
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