And suddenly every tech comm and content strategy conference seems to be about getting your content ready for chatbots. Makes sense if you are a conference organizer. Chatbots are sexy and sex sell…
Source: Chatbots are not the future of Technical Communication
I’ve had the chance to meet Mark Baker and chat with him, and Mark is not a guy known for mincing words. That said, as I read this article, I was feeling a bit relieved that, while I didn’t have the depth of knowledge on the topic as he’s outlined here, I didn’t think chatbots were really that much of a tech comm thing either. I mean, yes, I understand where many are coming from in respects to thinking that it is, but in the near future, I really don’t see it happening. It doesn’t make sense. My gut says that we are still figuring out how to apply single-sourcing to a variety of instances, even at large global corporations, so we’re not even close to getting into chatbot and AI and machine language translations that can understand the nuances of spoken language. We’re not even close–not really. My Amazon Echo doesn’t understand most of what I ask “Alexa”, and it’s not because of my New Jersey accent.
I have fallen into the trap of following some of the trends that Mark describes as being the new thing hyped at conferences and such, and finding that a) it wasn’t for me, and b) it’s something that certain industries aren’t looking for. Marketing departments don’t want technical communicators as their content marketing strategists. They want marketers. So who’s to say that those in AI want technical communicators to figure out chatbots? I have to agree with Mark–I don’t think this is a good match.
What do you think? Include your comments below.
–TechCommGeekMom
TechCommGeekMom 