A chatbot is a computer program that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to simulate human conversation. You’ve probably met some form of them too, think Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and ChatGPT (just to name a few)!
They can do it all
Whether it’s helping you order a pizza, answering specific questions, or guiding you through a complex process. What’s more, Al chatbots are constantly learning from their conversations so, over time, they can adapt their responses to different patterns and new situations.
With all the things that Al chatbots can do, there are times when they almost seem like magic. And that makes Al chatbots a source of confusion (and sometimes fear) for the people who encounter.
The Good
Al chatbots are certainly not overrated; users can come up with creative ideas for prompts, such as asking questions in search of funny answers, creating content, improving their writing or Excel skills, finding and correcting a bug in code, or summarising a book.
Across all these areas, one thing is abundantly clear: what makes Al tools remarkable isn’t how innovative they are but how great they are at generating text and how accessible and easy they are to use. For businesses they can be an essential part of customer satisfaction, including improvement in customer engagement, lead generation, cost savings, and increased sales. Al chatbots have multiple uses across multiple scenarios and that’s one of the reasons they’re so appealing!
The Bad
Al-enabled services are rapidly emerging and as they develop, the risks are going to get worse. Chatbots typically collect text, voice and device information as well as data that can reveal your email address and phone number, media use, and social location such address your as your IP which means the chances of becoming a victim of malware or malicious emails will increase.
Any information you enter on a chatbot has the chance of being leaked on the internet. And with generative Al able to produce content such as voice, text or images, cyber criminals could have the chance to create more realistic so-called deepfake videos and recordings, by mimicking a bank employee asking for a password, for example.
The Unknown
Once thought of as just automated talking programs, Al chatbots can now learn and hold conversations that are almost indistinguishable from humans. However, the dangers of ΑΙ chatbots are just as varied. Bias, discrimination, and data poisoning are all potential threats as Al technology learns from data sets and uses that information to complete tasks.
Experts fear a wave of disinformation and scams as ΑΙ chatbot technology becomes more widely available. Potential frauds include or personalised phishing emails produced at mass scale, and impersonations of friends relatives. Are bots dangerous? Not inherently, but cybercriminals can use them in various disruptive ways. It’s up to users to decide what the applications of this newfound technology are.
