
Ask HN: What does the cutting edge of AI-chatbots look like as of Oct 2017? - arikr
What does the cutting edge look like in conversation with a human?<p>What progress might we expect over the next few years?<p>I&#x27;m wondering how far are we away from chatbots that can serve as equally engaging over text as real friends (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;replika.ai&#x2F;) or as equally effective as therapists (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x2.ai&#x2F;).
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PaulHoule
There are two threads I am thinking of in response to your question.

One of them is "chatbots aimed at helping people with some utilitarian way in
a particular domain" where I think the interesting thing is being able to ask
good questions.

Imagine a nutrition tracking application where you take a picture of some
food. If you took a picture of a burrito it cannot see what is inside. If you
force people to fill out a detailed form, you won't get compliance. If you can
ask people one or two chosen questions you can shrink the error bars on the
nutrition parameters.

The other one, which you seem to be interested in, is chatbots that play an
emotional role and for that I think you should look at video game characters,
particularly in the "visual novel" genre and video games that incorporate a
"visual novel" element such as this series

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjhgDvbmK5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjhgDvbmK5k)

The long and short of it is that this kind of game can get you into intense
emotional relationships with characters and sometimes when you get the "bad
ending" you might be depressed by it for a day or two. I like the VR angle
because characters like that could be "too close" or "too far away" for
comfort.

