Both Siri et al and modern chatbots are just menu systems though. They are constrained to a finite list of things they can do, and have some intent resolution logic on top of that so that you can ask for things in slightly different ways and still get a response. It works alright for Siri because there is value in the closed domain of actions it provides, and users have been trained to stay within this domain. It works less well for a "support" chatbot that is really just acting as a gatekeeper for a closed menu system with which the user is not very familiar. I'd rather just be presented with a hierarchical list of actions I can take, and the option to talk to a person if my request is not there. Having to guess whether the menu behind a chatbot supports a particular action is supremely frustrating.
Intelligence is hard to define and easy to dismiss.
We've made huge strides over the last few decades in image recognition, text and image generation, modelling etc. I think it's unfair to dismiss digital assistants as just menu systems, yes they are limited, but then so are humans. Software is catching up with humans in every domain, including ones previous dismissed as impossible to tackle.
Software playing chess can be dismissed as just a decision tree but it has far surpassed human players and human intelligence in that domain. At some point I expect software to be able to pass the turing test and that we're not there yet does not indicate that these systems are useless or we have made no progress.
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Both Siri et al and modern chatbots are just menu systems though. They are constrained to a finite list of things they can do, and have some intent resolution logic on top of that so that you can ask for things in slightly different ways and still get a response. It works alright for Siri because there is value in the closed domain of actions it provides, and users have been trained to stay within this domain. It works less well for a "support" chatbot that is really just acting as a gatekeeper for a closed menu system with which the user is not very familiar. I'd rather just be presented with a hierarchical list of actions I can take, and the option to talk to a person if my request is not there. Having to guess whether the menu behind a chatbot supports a particular action is supremely frustrating.
Intelligence is hard to define and easy to dismiss.
We've made huge strides over the last few decades in image recognition, text and image generation, modelling etc. I think it's unfair to dismiss digital assistants as just menu systems, yes they are limited, but then so are humans. Software is catching up with humans in every domain, including ones previous dismissed as impossible to tackle.
Software playing chess can be dismissed as just a decision tree but it has far surpassed human players and human intelligence in that domain. At some point I expect software to be able to pass the turing test and that we're not there yet does not indicate that these systems are useless or we have made no progress.