Chatbots are dumb, but wait until they learn how to negotiate for you

Chatbots were supposed to be a big part of our AI-powered future, but they've mostly fallen flat. Scratch the surface of any online bot selling you takeout or flights abroad, and you'll usually find drop-down menus repackaged as questions. To get chatbots to the next level (and make them genuinely useful), they'll need to be given new skills -- like memory, and the ability to reason. Adding these new cognitive abilities is closer than you think. Facebook is one of the biggest players in this domain.