Chatbots ready to take over our world

It is remarkable how the tech czars of the world have come to occupy a place just below the popular appeal of the leaders of countries. As recognisable in the public domain as Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin or Narendra Modi in these days of saturation coverage by multi-media, these tech chieftains have carved a niche for themselves in the last few decades. Looking back, a Bill Gates looks almost passé, although the modernisation of the world owes a large debt to him and Microsoft for the way they standardised computers and made them so usable in the ’80s

Of far more recent vintage was Steve Jobs, who took ages to turn Apple around after falling out with his early peers at the firm. It is unfortunate then that the irascible and yet visionary thinker is no more in our midst just when his iPhones and iPads are peaking in popularity and time is almost at the point when something new might just arrive to shake up the tech world. While we should be most proud that the secular world of equal opportunity in the US has catapulted the likes of Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai to the top rungs of the tech pyramid, the one who still seems to hold the most fascination is Mark Zuckerberg.

The 31-year-old’s tech czar’s Facebook is apparently set to go places even more with the new chatbots that seem to have taken the tech world by storm. It has emerged from the latest developers’ conference (F8) of Facebook that the social media platform might just beat all others in becoming the ultimate link between man and the immediate world around him.

Apparently, all you would need to do soon to order a pizza, book an air ticket or a hotel room or just call for a radio cab would be to use a chatbot in Facebook. Microsoft is doing something similar in tying its Conver sations up with Skype to offer much the same things except that the chatbots being offered by Facebook Messenger bot platform are already live and delivering the services.

By bringing the developers on board earlier, Facebook has stolen a march and the nearly billion regular users can look forward to a better experience. It is amazing how a media platform has made everyday life somewhat easier. The tech evolution is as fascinating a tale as the breakthrough tech that made these platforms an integral part of modern life.

The mobile phone ushered in the new world and what it can do today to ease the lives of users is enhanced by social media platforms as well as connectivity with the wider world through the Internet. The mobiles have become so ubiquitous as to have created an “umbilical” bond with the user leading to withdrawal symptoms if they were so much as to be out of sight or misplaced even for a little while.

Not all may agree. In fact, there are seniors who believe Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter make up a trio that has spoiled modern living by creating social media addictions. And they have invaded our world even more by integrating with the mobile phone. The bots will probably take the links even further that the imagination would baulk at being out in the world without a device in hand.

The Facebook user-business interface promises to turn Facebook Messenger into a one-stop shop. This is smart thinking and also convenient since a user does not have to download all those heavy apps into his smartphone and suffer the problem of running out of memory space on the device.

Staying relevant is a difficult enough proposition in any venture in a fast changing world in which software and devices g out of fashion even before they hit the markets and create peak demand. It is futuristic then of Zuckerberg to keep himself ahead in this manner.

Ultimately, the battle between Facebook (at $325 billion, the world’s sixth most valuable company) and Google (worth $527 billion and ready to take over as the world’s top company displacing Apple, valued now at $605 billion) will shape the digital future for everyone. Meanwhile, enjoy the convenience of bots.