Staying up to date is no longer a problem with the proliferation of social media and messaging apps. The problem however is keeping up with all of them. At the recently concluded TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in New York, it was unveiled that a new bot aims to change all that.
Irene Chang, a resident of Jersey, is the brains behind the Chat Bot Club. This bot uses Cisco Spark and IBM Watson to learn the personal style of replying of its user. For instance, the most used phrases and favorite emojis by the user can be replicated across different messaging apps like WeChat, WhatsApp, Kik, Facebook Messenger, and others, Tech Crunch noted.
Another chat bot was also introduced during the Hackathon. The 911bot for Facebook Messenger lets users contact 911 using a chat interface. While it may sound like a bad idea at first, the chat interface does provide some advantages like the possibility of attaching photos and providing a GPS location to emergency services.
Slash Gear reported that 911bot has even more features. Aside from letting users attach pics and exact locations, the bot also gives instructions as to what actions the user should and should not do. A perfect example of this feature would be when a bystander witnesses an accident. The bot can easily guide the bystander into doing the best course of action without starting a panic.
Additionally, in events such as a cardiac arrest, the 911bot can give instructions in the proper use of CPR. This is incredibly important as it is has been proven that CPR performed within the first 5 minutes of a cardiac arrest exponentially increases the chances for survival.
To make things less serious, having a text interface also allows users to input their favorite emojis while reporting through 911bot.
In the future, it might be possible to have truly intuitive chat bots that allow presence in more than one chat group. For instance, using a chat bot in the work setting could improve work flow and let users reply to important messages instantly.
Maybe one of the future paths of chat bots would be to provide a digest that lets users see a rundown of the messages the bot had sent. Basically, it would be a convenient way to back read on all the messages sent.
