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| Smart Virtual Assistants: the next frontier |
Facebook
MFacebook presents Facebook m, an intelligent virtual assistant who
joins a Panorama in which all major technology competes: Apple with
Siri, Google with its Google Now and with a wide range of algorithms and
devices that pose from automatically created photos to suggestions of
all kinds, Microsoft with Cortana, or Amazon with its echo. If in one
area we find initiatives of such five companies, there is no doubt that
we are talking about something with a potential development of many
consequences.
Competition
in this area Aboca us to a very interesting world, with strategies of
various kinds and radically different approaches. From simply replacing
user actions to expedite certain tasks ("Let me know about this", "Call
this person" or "find me an answer to this question"), to more creative
tasks ("You made these photos and I have assembled them in this one", or
"I've taken the photos of your trip, I've ridden them with background
music and transitions, and here's a summary"), or suggestions of various
types based on data taken from user patterns ("This product might
interest you").
In
development strategies we can also see several interesting initiatives,
such as developing ecosystems that function as platforms for third
parties, combining data extracted from various sources, incorporation of
devices beyond the smartphone that centralize these functions, or
combination of algorithms of artificial intelligence with models of
human decision-making. Strategies that ultimately seek to become
something that the user deems interesting enough to give him a
reasonable and sustained share of use, beyond mere curiosity or grace to
comment and teach friends at the bar of a bar.
A
frontier which, no doubt, it seems complex: the distance between being
pleasantly surprised by the skills of a virtual assistant and almost
frightened by what appears to be able to do is small, and the potential
implications of allowing that agent to manage our information to build
their recommendations can also be viewed as intrusive. That Google Now
take data from my calendar, combine them with traffic data in my city,
and send me an alert that tells me that I must leave with more advance
than usual for my next appointment because there is a jam in the route
can be, in many circumstances, very interesting, but it also leads us to
reflect on the level of control over our lives that we begin to deliver
to an artificial intelligence that many still consider relatively
threatening. It is more than possible that the Intelligent Agent
initiative presented by Facebook has to, at some point, confront the
fears that can generate the fact that this agent operates not simply
with the data generated by other tools, like Google Now or with our
purchases, but with all the information we share in the social network ,
who is presumably able to get to know us better than ourselves. If we
want to get into an interesting and undoubtedly groundbreaking
environment, we have only to consider the possible legal
responsibilities that a smart agent might have to face in terms of its
possible interaction with a user.
What
seems clear is that a scenario of intense competition looms to be done
with the favors of some customers who will see as a progressively
greater number of tasks are entrusted to this type of assistants, while
feeding their deep learning with the data and reactions that are
generating their own activities. A stage not so futuristic, which is
taking place in many cases in the form of relatively trivial tasks or
sometimes linked to simple entertainment, but which reveals a strategy
that goes much, far beyond, and in which the development of a panorama
of intense competition can have nothing but positive consequences.
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