Bots in society

Conversational interfaces are a novel way to interact with computers. Human language is becoming the new user interface, bots the new apps, and personal digital assistants the new browsers. Lili Cheng, an architect who directs the Microsoft Research Lab behind Xiaoice and Tay, will reflect on human reactions to our bot counterparts.

Conversational interfaces are a novel way to interact with computers. Human language is becoming the new user interface, bots the new apps, and personal digital assistants the new browsers. These layers are built on artificial intelligence that’s made breathtaking progress in the last few years. We’ve invited Lili Cheng, who is helping spearhead Microsoft’s conversation-as-a-platform strategy, to summarize Bot Day. Drawing on observations from Xiaoice, Microsoft’s extraordinarily popular Chinese chatbot, and its American sibling, Tay, whose learning capabilities were corrupted by trolls, Lili will reflect on the way that humans are embracing their bot counterparts.