Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

I don't hate chatbots in principle. I mostly hate chatbots used as a customer support channel for SaaS applications - even more so when they are the only channel for customer support.

Why? Because frankly they just aren't good enough yet. In my experience they are too dumb to be useful and the process of interacting with the bot is just a waste of my time.

I also don't like when the chatbot interface pops up and starts interacting with me on an unsolicited basis. To me that's just like when I walk into a retail store and 3 seconds later somebody is in my face going "Can I help you find anything?" That is an experience that I also hate with a white-hot burning fury.

That said, I did have a good experience with an Amazon chatbot recently where I expected it to not work, and it wound up solving my problem after all. shrug

True. That Amazon chatbot is a whole different league in terms of intelligence than any of the out-of-the-box chatbots from intercom etc though.

What's different in Amazon's bot implementation? And is it accessible to smaller companies somehow?

I suspect a tonne of NLP, machine learning/AI. An intercom chatbot is at best just a bunch of very simple logic rules.

Yes, Amazon and Google both have nlp driven chatbot apis. They are generally hard to use and your typical person will not be able to configure it.

https://aws.amazon.com/lex/

https://cloud.google.com/dialogflow

^ But why would anyone go through all that for a vanity chatbox on a landing page? Stuff like that is for, you know, a real chatbot.

I didn't notice anything ground breaking with the Amazon chat bot. But it works because it actually has the power/permissions to solve your problem.

For me, it was mostly multiple choice questions that ended with, "your order has been refunded, you may keep or dispose of the item".

For me, it was mostly multiple choice questions that ended with, "your order has been refunded, you may keep or dispose of the item".

That jibes totally with my experience as well. Like you said "it works because it actually has the power/permissions to solve your problem." It's not necessarily more intelligent but it can do useful things nonetheless.

I’d like to add that when I reach for chat I’ve exhausted the prepackaged easily findable options.

A chatbot usually provides a slower interface to exactly these.

It serves the company in reducing call center expenses, not me in finding what I need.

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