Last week the tech world went berserk when it was believed that Facebook chatbots (a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users) appeared to make up their own language and start plotting to take over the world – as usual the hype was great, the truth far less interesting, the bots were actually never programmed to speak or converse in any particular language so they were just sending random message to each other, but it was enough to get ABC Perth’s Barry Nichols to want to chat about all things Bot in our weekly catch up.

We began by exploring what a Bot is and our most common ones at this stage are still the hotel or airline web page that pops up with a box at the bottom so you can talk to an agent (who often is not human). We looked at some really interesting uses of Bots in mental health, a story of a programmer who upon learning of his fathers imminent death set about building a Dad Bot containing his fathers conversations (recorded) and words of wisdom that he now regularly talks to.

For me it’s not so much about what a Bot is today, but rather that it points to a near world in which we use natural language and gestures to engage with technology and where it not only listens to our express wishes but also tries to determine our implied wishes communicating both back to us using a human persona.

So for all things bot, have a listen now to two humans having a chat about what might be chatting to us in the near future