Memory World Champion Boris Nikolai Konrad comments on chat robots
None of the providers got a better grade than „satisfactory“, even though the questions deliberately did not contain any technical or complex issues. Everyday issues such as the child-friendly setting of a smartphone or the blocking of a phone number were tested. Neuroscientist Dr. Boris Nikolai Konrad, who deals with artificial and human intelligence in the course of his scientific work, was not surprised by these results. „The robot chats did not do particularly well, which doesn’t surprise me in view of today’s state of the art. The exponential technological advancement, however, will ensure that this will change soon and at a breakneck speed, concludes the Global Topspeaker.
Dr. Konrad underlines his statement by using Google as an example: At their last developer conference, the internet company presented a telephone robot that makes phone calls for customers. Afterwards, it was claimed that this had been staged. The Global Topspeaker, however, is sure that the development has indeed progressed this far. With a view to the already existing options, Dr. Konrad says: „Even today, you will get amazingly good answers from robots in certain cases – unfortunately, total nonsense as well, however. But the technology is getting better day by day!“
The neuroscientist also commented on the questions, the team from Stiftung Warentest used for their analyses: „I also have the impression - at least with regard to the presented sample questions – that the questions used in the test were deliberately chosen insofar as they cannot be answered with a simple ‚yes or no’. The questions are quite realistic for sure – but the majority of questions hotlines receive usually only refer to prices and availability. And for this kind of questions, today’s generation of bots can provide pretty good answers already. In this context, it is also quite fascinating that compared to the bots, the human chat partners didn’t do any better and were also judged to be satisfactory or inadequate.“
In his presentations, Dr. Konrad demonstrates what role artificial intelligence already plays in our everyday live. There are already computer programmes that are more intelligent than we are – at least in certain areas. In his presentation „Artificial intelligence – Can we stay smarter than the robots?“, the Global Topspeaker does away with the transfigured and unrealistic notion of R2D2 or other humanoid-looking robots. Based on examples, he demonstrates instead what technology is really capable of today and what we can expect in the future.
The Global Topspeaker is convinced that even despite all the technological options – including chat bots -, we prefer a human conversation partner. However, Dr. Boris Nikolai Konrad is sure: „As soon as the bots’ quality is improving – and it will -, our preferences will change as well. For: Who wants to wait in a queue for ten minutes if intelligent software can provide the desired information just as quickly and in equal quality?”