Our Christmas episode was recorded under the auspices of Janus, the god of all things related to time. Now into the month named after him, the SmallDataForum reviews its predictions and looks at the year ahead. Will Europe ‘take back control’, or will commercial pressures curb big tech's enthusiasm? Will 2018 be the breakthrough year for chatbots and DPAs (digital personal assistants), both in business and personal use? How will continuous technological and economic transformations affect … [Read more...] about SDF Podcast 15 – Reining in tech: responsibility, regulation and education
chatbots
2018: the year of chatbots, AI and digital personal assistants
2017 was the year that artificial intelligence (AI) generally gained a greater consciousness in the public mind as well as in the minds of many professionals, not the least being those in the broad communication business – especially public relations, advertising, marketing and employee communication. Every time we see a robot mentioned in the mainstream media, there's either a photo of the Terminator or some human-looking machine which feeds our fear – adding to the uncertainty and doubt … [Read more...] about 2018: the year of chatbots, AI and digital personal assistants
SDF Podcast 14: Looking forward by looking back
As the Small Data Forum progresses through its early teenage years – our latest podcast is episode 14 already – regular co-hosts Thomas Stoeckle, Neville Hobson, and Sam Knowles are taking the opportunity to look forward by looking back. Patients of our own medicine, you might say, we’re using the year end and what we’ve observed and learned in 2017 to enter the predictive analytics business. We take our inspiration from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and time, after whom … [Read more...] about SDF Podcast 14: Looking forward by looking back
Give your chatbot some real personality
Chatbots are all the rage at the moment. These clever computer programs (algorithms, to be more precise) are popping up everywhere online to help you with mundane tasks from getting a weather forecast or currency exchange rate to travel planning to online shopping. Organizations everywhere are experimenting with these useful bits of technology, with varying degrees of success as part of the learning process (remember what happened to Microsoft's Tay earlier this year?). If you use Siri … [Read more...] about Give your chatbot some real personality
Are chatbots in the workplace the entry point to cognitive personal assistants?
Like robots, artificial intelligence and machine learning, one topic getting a lot of attention at the moment is chatbots. Much of the news and commentary about these relatively simple computer programs have been on the negative side - Microsoft's Tay, for instance, and the blanket coverage of the conversational meltdown that happened within days of the chatbot's public trial in March. Not a good pointer to the utility and value of such algorithms! (I noticed, btw, that the Tay URL currently … [Read more...] about Are chatbots in the workplace the entry point to cognitive personal assistants?