Time For Chatbots To Get Smart

When you imagine the ideal chatbot, what do you picture? The bot in your mind's eye may resemble something along the lines of blockbuster movie favorites like Baymax from Big Hero 6, Wall-E's EVE, or my personal hero, C-3PO. You probably didn't imagine a small tower that lives on your shelf, like Alexa; a virtual being that resides in the cloud and is accessed through your smartphone, like Siri; or even a pop-up chat window on your computer screen that can answer questions about your favorite products. Besides their looks, there's another major difference between today's artificial intelligence (AI) and our movie favorites: Our most beloved fictional chatbots all possess emotional intelligence (EI). As we move into the future, AI needs humanizing qualities to improve the way it interacts with us, meets our needs for information, and even controls the other technology around us.