Siri rival can understand the messy nature of our conversations

We take digital personal assistants for granted these days. But these systems are still limited: they only deal with one task at a time, and more complicated interactions can leave them confused. Iris, a chatbot system developed by a team at Stanford University, is different. It can handle more complex forms of conversation – and could pave the way for personal assistants that understand how we really speak to one another. "I would say this is probably among the most complex behaviour I've seen from a chatbot to date," says Ryan Lowe at research lab OpenAI, who was not involved in the work. When we talk, we use all sorts of linguistic tricks and techniques to make ourselves understood.