Fascinating to see the results of CNN's experiment with chatbots. Can a conversation and a relationship - however brief with a chatbot replace one with a real person, that's something only time will tell.
The immediate danger with a chatbot I suspect will be people will get fed up with hearing just 'the line', without the subtle nuances of how a conversation is shaped and opinions formed.
I can't see journalists for example appreciating just hearing the same line over and over without being able to probe, discuss and question. I'm sure there are however many who will say they deal with PR people are quite robotic in their answers.....
I would be really concerned if people consider they are too busy in life to have a real conversation and that they would turn to technology to provide them with an answer. Come on people, talk to each other!
Chatbots enable both scale and granularity. It is the difference between one editor reaching everyone with the same message at the same time, and a chatbot reaching every individual with a unique message at a unique moment in time. That said, technology cannot single handedly solve the dilemma of distribution. What we’ve learned is the most effective chatbots bring the right mix of editorial curation and technological automation. It is an art and science.
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/11/16/what-cnn-has-learnt-after-six-months-chatbot-experimentation
