This happened when I had to call my parents via Skype. Suddenly I found the Skype app had been updated everywhere, on the phone, on my computer, literally, everywhere and I had to relog myself on. The problem was, I am used to have the log on information stored so it's been awhile since I had to manually log on to Skype. After spent half an hour digging into my old email account which I have long stop using after switching to Gmail (like, 15 years old), turned on my Taiwanese phone (which I only use once or twice when I am back in Taiwan) in order to receive the security code, update my phone number and email address, finally I was able to sign in to Skype. However the ordeal didn't stop there. At the moment I signed in by typing in what-I-thought-was my Skype name, I found that my Skype credits were all gone. So I spent another 20 minutes to search on line to see how to resolve the problem in vain and finally landed on the customer support page and started to chat with the customer support "John F."
John was nice. After I typed in my problem, he asked to see my purchase number of the Skype credit. So I did dig in my mail box and found the 5 years ago mail. But he still couldn't find the problem so he asked me to paste the entire email where the purchase number resided. So I did. When I did that, I also found out my own mistake. I actually had a different Skype name. (which made me wonder later why I could use a totally different Skype name to log on). At the same time, John F. also found that I had used different Skype names. So the problem was resolved. And I typed "Thank you John chatbot". Then John typed, "I am not a chatbot". I found myself rude by assuming him as a chatbot. But is he really not one? How can one tell whether one is talking to a droid or not?
Nowadays is relative easy to implement some AI function based on the cloud service like Amazon Web Service (Lex) or Microsoft Azure (Azure Bot Service) or IBM Watson (IBM chatbot). Though it still takes quite some efforts to build in enough data to be able to provide comprehensive answers to all kinds of possible questions.
According to the report here, quite a good portion of people are not bothered to talk to a Bot if it/she/he can help with his problem. I have almost the same opinion and am thankful that John F. helped to resolve my problem much faster than me digging around on the net. However I would also appreciate to know if I am talking to a Bot, so I know that I don't have to waste my emotional resources.
There are also not nice things on the Internet where Chatbots are used to solicit sensitive information from you. Joseph Rauch provided some tips to help to identify whether you are talking to a Chatbot or a real person.
Unfortunately I didn't read this article before I chatted with Skype online service John. But I am suspicious that he was a Chatbot. According to the brief of the Chatbot Market 2017, I think it's not a surprise that Microsoft uses the development results in their own service hotline. Even Skype itself provides chatbot API for the business customers.
The key players within the chatbot industry, such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Telegram, have been investing in the development of chatbot technologies for years and continue to work on major bot projects.Welcome to the future!
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