How the Use of Chatbots Influences Humanity

Welcome to the bot-centric future, which is set to make smartphone users -- i.e. almost everyone in the Western hemisphere -- navigate the internet in a chit-chat fashion with a virtual assistant. But "assistant" will soon become too impersonal. Alexa, Siri and others will cross the line from impersonal robots to entities that know our habits, routines, hobbies and interests just as well as, if not better than, our closest friends and relatives. For companies, this is a winning formula. Smartphone users have proved they are only willing to download and spend time in a limited number of apps.