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IBM's Virtual Helpdesk For The Masses
An Anonymous Coward writes: "From the NYtimes: IBM has recently announced AI that supposedly can handle 20,000 simultaneous 'Help Desk Requests.'
Per the release not only can it handle complaints in normal prose (typed, not spoken), but also fix them.
Will wonders never cease -- a robot to tell me which key is the 'any' key?! ... Please let this be more than Ask Jeeves."
that this is worthwhile. seriously though how do uncertified folks filter into the industry if not throught he helpdesk?
If that's not intuitive, I don't know what is. You've got the start button, you've got the flag button, get your bearings and call me in the morning.
Actually, it works pretty well, when you consider the mix of reasons that a real help desk would get called. I am an IBMer. Our intranet is so large and diverse -- our applications servers are scattered everywhere -- that one network error can make apps look unavailable. This system is pretty useful. Instead of spending idle time on hold status on the telephone, the system will assign your complaint a ticket number, and a tech support specialist will answer you by e-mail, usually pretty quickly. If the complaint is a network outage someplace, or affects the IBM intranet-wide, you'll be told so. If not, they handle your inquiry just as well as if it had been received by telephone. I imagine the tech support people actually LIKE not getting the same old calls over and over again ... now they just ship out e-mails.
This system is coupled with a central web page that displays network and server outages -- and major outstanding ticket numbers -- so that those who can actually interpret these things can even avoid filing a complaint in the first place.
Personally, I didn't like this at first; but it's really working out pretty well. If you're one of those users that doesn't like interacting with a web page, there's always the phone, which they haven't disconnected (yet).
What is the "official" definition of AI? Get off your high horse lest you become as bad as those pretentious elitist cyber/extropian/digerati/Mondo 2000 wankers.
eLiza: Hello BOFH, there are 4,204 Help desk tickets in the Queue, should I process them now /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2 ...
BOFH: No eLiza - have you been feeling well recently, run a diag, then pipe the output to
eLiza: running the following command... eLiza.diag >
eLiza:
BOFH: (thinking) *fix* annoying helpdesk problem - check
Secret windows code
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
"From the article, it sounds like this doesn't provide just an automated answer, but an automated fix. So instead of telling users how to add a printer, it will actually go in and configure the software on the users machine! In the future, they even plan on automating OS patches."
Yeah, I can just see it now. A vistor from a remote office or small division shows up, plugs into the network, printing doesn't work, so he contacts this AI. The AI notes a problem and helpfully downloads all kinds of fixes for Microsoft-based printing, blowing away the carefully crafted Novell/Linux/other-OS printing system that IT has spent years tuning to perfection. Yep, that'll be the cat's pajamas.
sPh
There's no clear definition - anyone is of course free to come up with their own clear definition, a privilege many exploit and enjoy.
Simple searching - for example, finding an element in a balanced tree, is artificial intelligence. Unless, of course, you're talking about another kind of artificial intelligence, which you may well be depending on who you're talking to.
Often people who don't have a clue too often makes the context of such a discussion imply that A.I. is not "artificial" intelligence, but "human" intelligence - meaning, self awareness, initiative, improvisation, etc.
Get over it. A.I. is a term that can be used to designate a very wide range of problem solving algorithms and systems. Anything from simple graph search to neural networks and what not are covered.
Just know, that depending on who you're talking to, A.I. may well be confused with H.I.
Are you talking about AskPSP? It was kind of a expert system that asked you questions and eliminated answers until it got a small number.
It was included with OS/2 4 so that you could find the answers to the problems that Warp 3 and were solved in Warp 4. Great.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
...that supposedly can handle 20,000 simultaneous 'Help Desk Requests.' Per the release not only can it handle complaints in normal prose (typed, not spoken), but also fix them.
The version that just takes complaints and doesn't fix them runs a whole lot quicker.
5 REM automated tech support, as used by Telewest
10 PRINT "My time is yours."
15 INPUT a$
20 PRINT "Oh dear - your ticket number is ";rand(300000)
30 GOTO 10
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
User: Help, I've forgotten my password again.
eLiza: What is your username?
User: root
eLiza: Ok, your password is "aybabtu"
User: Can you also tell me the password for username Administrator?
eLiza: Sure, that password is "sosuutb"
User: Thanks, you've been very helpful.
Depending on the context, upwards 80% of all level one support contact is of the "password and printer" variety - dead easy questions which a suitably trained monkey can deal with.
Sure, it shows NLP is progressing - but it's more to do with the generally facile questions asked of support than the technology now available.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
anti-bofh-ware.
damn, it's things like this that take part of the fun out of my day.
"Here's 50 bucks, take this in case I get drunk and call you a bitch later." - Ricky (Vince Vaughn)Made (2001)
20,000 requests? Bah, what I want to know is if it will stand up to a good Slashdotting....
paranoid schitzophrenic (sp?) :)
no no PS is the acronym. And getting it backwards is dyslexic.
its a slow monday
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
I can see it now:
*ring ring*
Tech: Hello?
eLiza: This is eLiza calling. The backup domain controller is reacting very slowly. I have determined that it is because of an Oedipal problem targetted at the tape backup server for the domain controller.
Tech: Call Joe, I cannot make it in
eLiza: Are you feeling inadequate? Tell me more about your father.
Tech: Look, the server's messing up, I can't come in, call Joe!
eLiza: There's no reason to get upset. How do you feel about call Joe?
Tech: Fine, I'll be there in half an hour. Reboot the backup domain controller in the meantime.
eLiza: rebooting the BDC will only delay your feelings of inadequacy towards Joe. Perhaps you'd like to tell me more about your half and hour?
Tech: *click*
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Yes there was/is - "Main Frame", in the literal sense - it's the main frame of the computer, just as "mainframes" (large computer systems) in the modern usage have a "Main Frame" that is the (room-filling) CPU and core accessories. Monitors and keyboards are "peripherals" to the main frame (peripheral just means they're on the outskirts :-)
I have a couple of books from 1977 describing the revolutionary new "microprocessor based computers" that use the term "Main Frame" in this way, for the rack/box assembly of the cpu/core accessories, that in microprocessor systems was shrunk down to desk top size - but still called the "main frame" in the literature I have from the time of the orginal shrinkage.
Somewhere along the line, people started to use "mainframe" almost exclusively to mean the large systems.
Actually, some of the books I have from the time are quite fascinating - advocating "personal computer" designs with massive numbers of parrallel-running microprocessors because "time-slice task switching is so wasteful now that processors are so cheap". And "bit slice machines are the way forward".
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Expert systems are AI too. Not all AI will eventually evolve to a sentient being.
In future releases, Turek said the software will automatically try to fix minor operating system problems without alerting a human.
;-)
So if you BSOD it'll reformat your harddrive and install Linux in Windows' place
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
A little planning goes a long way...
20,000 simultaneous requests? Thats just about right to handle windows support.
- Thinking like humans
- Acting like humans
- Thinking rationally
- Acting rationally
The Turing test is only about acting humanly. So your statement about eLiza not being AI is only partially correct since there's no clear definition of AI. In my opinion the most `usefull' definition of AI should not have anything to do with acting humanly; acting humanly is only one sort of intelligence which is by no means the best. I think eLiza can be considered AI since it thinks rationally. And that's what it's all about; acting humanly is rather useless...if it only were for our emotions which can mess up the rational part really easy.0x or or snor perron?!
David Turek, sure sounds vulcan to me. IBM employing vulcans, fascinating.
a sig with any other name would be as witty
eLiza springs into action and immediately dispatches a support call to the HR director: "Error in employee [name]. Recommend replacing meatspace controller."
------------------------
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
Sorry, cowboy. There's very little more irritating than someone who thinks he's infallible.
I -always- ran smarty-men through the whole checklist, point-by-point -- even adding some points depending on just how smart they were.
The ones who -really- knew what the fsck they were doing stayed calm and asserted that "yes, they've done that," "yes, they've done THAT," "yes, they've done that TOO."
Y'see, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. Without exception. And if you're calling -me-, then something's wrong somewhere... and if I don't already know about it, the odds are that it's not on my side. Ignoring snotty bastards like you and -going through the checklist- is the best, most efficent way to make sure every goddamn base is covered... 'cause the one I miss is sure as hell gonna be the one you missed too. And then you'll be on the phone for DAYS.
Methodical. Plodding. Point-by-fragging-point. It's not glamarous, and it sure doesn't exclude listening, analysis, and creativity... but if you want to catch -everything-, then you build a formula and follow it. Every time. Without exception.
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
Like any regular slashdotter doesn't know the NY Times requires a logon. I've known it for years. If it bothers you, don't go there.
Best Slashdot Co
Made that point in his book 2010. "If you can prove you are not pretending to be angry I will accept that HAL is only pretending to be sapient". Or words to that effect.
Best Slashdot Co
I can't remember the name (Minsky?), but a few weeks ago one of the people who's been doing AI for awhile pointed out that whenever someone creates a system that can meet some of the definitions of AI, the definitions are changed. A system was created a few years ago that could imitate a paranoid schitzophrenic (sp?) well enough to fool practicing psychiatrists. Is that AI?
Best Slashdot Co
Female Prison Rape in NY
I had written up an similar dialog, but once the lameness filter rejects your post, it claims the post was originally posted at the beginning of the unix epoch...
:-P
/. inside jokes (AYB-filter-triggered-notifying-security, beowulf, anti-M$ rant), but /.ers can use their own imagination to fill in the rest.
/.
Easy does it! This comment has been submitted already, 276471 hours , 18 minutes ago. No need to try again.
it went a little something like this, but this is just based on being on both ends of a hell desk line
[Luser]: It doesn't work
[HellDeskAI]: ##unknown-subject[It]## What doesn't work?
[L]: my machine is broken
[HDAI]: ##common-response## Have you rebooted your machine?
[L, 52 minutes later]: Yes, it still doesn't work
{snip}
it was a long post, which had all the great
the AC
who is tired of fighting the lameness filter on
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
And when the user says "no, I didn't change anything", it'll say "of course you did."
A real AI would be able to tell the difference between someone with a clue ("No, I really didn't change anything, asshole, I can connect, the modem trains, and then I can ping an IP address but I can't do DNS resolutions, SO IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY PHONE LINE, it has to do with either the router between my end and your DNS server, or if you're getting a million morons calling who can articulate nothing more than "my start page is broken!", then it probably is your friggin' DNS server") ...
Of course, since neither this AI nor most front-line technical support are able to make this distinction, I suppose the AI passes the Turing test.
Come to think of it, the Turing Test is getting a lot simpler to pass these days, isn't it? (And it sure ain't because the AIs are getting smarter.)
>
>But really, does anyone use these things? [...because they suck!]
Amen.
Natural language is a good tool for humans - "How do I clear a paper jam" from one human to another, when you're standing in front of the office printer, is a very clear query.
I get angry at companies that try to hide their tech support databases behind natural-language crap online.
Lemme type "paper jam $MODEL_FOO" at hp.com, and gimme the answer.
(Half the time, I tend to do just that - except I do it at google.com instead, and get either a direct link to the "right" company-internal page, or better yet, on groups.google.com, where there's a decent chance I'll find that $MODEL_FOO was recalled due to a design flaw, and that the company's keeping it quiet, but free replacement parts are available if you badger your salesdrone loudly enough :-)
> Is IBM just trying to occupy its customers on some online help session so that they're not sucking up money by being on hold on the 1-800 number? Or do they actually think that they can make this work?
"Yes", and "who-cares?", respectively.
Yes - because some percentage of the users are dumb enough to ask a common enough question and it's better to pay a CGI script nothing to waste the time of all users in order to make a 5-10% reduction in the number of calls to meat-based CGI scripts that cost real money.
Who-cares - because it's IBM. A big company with a big research budget. Read "The Dilbert Principle" and be enlightened. (Redux: It's a project with a sexy name, and real AI is so far away that the project can be milked for years of secure employment and decent budgets. Anyone involved has a good shot at spending 2-3 years of getting paid to goof around with problems they find interesting. Woo-hoo! Where do I transfer?)
I guess this means the low level IT job market will take another hit.
I could see this kind of technology being perfected in the near future which means another low level IT job becomes obsolete. Its kind of sad because Help Desk is where most IT internships and entry level positions are.
We are blind to the Worlds within us
We are blind to the Worlds within us
waiting to be born...
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/introducing/e liza/
An AI would learn and develop, and pass the Turing test, among other things. This is NOT an AI. This is an expert system.
Get your terms correct, lest you become as bad as the mainstream media in twisting words and phrases for your own demented ends.
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Just set up a custom web server which returns the following string when presented with any GET request:
Problem with non-Windows software: reboot your system.
Every 1000th request, it says:
Problem with Windows: reinstall the OS.
Actual code is left as an exercise for the student.
Easy!
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
...right up until a user has a real question. I've done helpdesk for years now, in a variety of environments and for support bases ranging from 600 to over ten thousand people. I'm going to remain very skeptical of any expert system's ability to handle this until I see it, as one of the more important aspects of a lot of helpdesk calls is proper human interaction. Often customers are very irate, and prone to misnomers in terminology. A calm helpdesk technician can sort through this, calm the customer, and solve the problem. A machine stands an even chance of making an irate customer even more upset, as it most definitely lacks in the calming people skills...
Otherwise though, this is at least a neat idea for solving some of the dummy password problems that do take a lot of time. Just don't expect to get rid of helpdesk that easily...and besides, who do you call when the system itself messes up? I can just see two of these systems trying to talk back and forth and troubleshoot themselves...
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
No offence, but it's just the NYTimes. It's free registration, they don't send you spam (as far as I've seen over the past few years), they don't seem to sell the email address you sign up with, and it's very quick registration, and oh have I mentioned, it's free?
Plus there are username/password combos that have been floating around Slashdot for the past year at least, and some of the common ones still work. I just set up my own since it was so simple, and gave them the hotmail addy since it's a spam garbage bin anyway. So no muss, no fuss and I can view articles now when they're linked.
-Eagle
The worst thing about censorship is ***END TRANSMISSION***
Alright,
P -IBM-AI-Software.html
Despite the fact that I'm invariably going to be modded down into trolldom, here's the 'trick' for those new to the nytimes page.
Simply change the URL to reflect 'archives' rather than 'www'.
Seeing as how it's a Monday, I'll even include the link below.
It's not magic, I won't even make it a real link. Learn it and let's let the subject die already.
http://archives.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/A
(remove the space in the 'AP -IBM..' part - yes, I previewed this post, but the Slashcode keeps adding that space regardless of format)
-ct
It's probably improved quite a bit since those days, but as with any technology it would be stupid to try to treat it as a magic bullet. Used to suppliment a good help desk it could be a valuable tool. Used to replace a good helpdesk with (more) trained chimpanzees, it will do nothing other than lower the customer satisfaction scores.
"So you see, with Automatic Volume Recognition your operators can pre-mount labelled tapes on any online tape drive and they'll be allocated to the correct jobs. But this doesn't mean you can hire CHIMPANZEES to run your systems!..."
- IBM Instructor, "Introduction to System/360," circa 2Q 1966
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Please, at least give SOME warning.
And really, should Slashdot even link to these 'free' stories that the majority of the readers can't even access without mucking with registration?
Sure it can. If everything fails, the expert system should contain questions about wether the user has modified the system in relevant ways. Wether it'll succeed is another matter though.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Heh, check it out; I'm a sex-symbol on Slashdot! ROFL!
As someone's already pointed out; the name (eLiza) doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the system's ability to actually come up with meaningful answers. And I have my doubts that it'll handle the fine calibre of idiot that corporations can create.
I can see it before me:
-------
From: IBM Support [support@ibm.com]
To: Customer Smith
Subject: RE: Problems with IBM support application
Dear customer,
Thank you for contacting the AI IBM supportdesk.
Please be more specific in describing your
problem so that we can help you more efficiently.
If you feel this response is not correct or
inadequate, feel free to contact our helpdesk
at support@ibm.com to report possible problems and/or complaints.
Thanks in advance,
IBM AI Support
[support@ibm.com]
Here at IBM we have a support group. This group couldn't clear off an etch a sketch. They make each division pay to use these guys. I have yet to see them fix something without days off blaming the user. Finally if you yell and scream loud enough they might feel the need to actually look at the problem and see its something on their end. They force all the users to use Windows 95 and NT 4.0 because they say they can't support anything else.
I just find it a bit ironic they make a product like this for other companies while we continue to suffer.
but this is how it is when you try to email Blizzard's tech support. Go ahead, think of a valid problem you're having with a Blizzard game, email support@blizzard.com and you'll get back an automated response that has nothing to do with your problem. Very frustrating.
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
so they can help David Letterman so he'll stop whining.
I'm reminded of this episode of the Bastard Operator from Hell from last year. Go there. Read it. It's funny.
Your nitpicking is especially silly in this context, because the only place "AI" is used the way you're using it is in Science Fiction. In the real world, "Artificial Intelligence" refers to a area of scientific investigation, not to a kind of postmodern robot. And this area includes expert systems!
Also, few serious thinkers accept the Turing Test as an objective benchmark of anything. Turing himself never called it that. He called a "game" and used it to demonstrate that people relied on some silly preconceptions when they evaluate "intelligence".
__
Hopefully, in a few years that will be "restart your KDE session and call back if there's still a problem".
Care to explain why / how ? Just like everyone else on /. I hate that reg crap ... so, heres my thoughts on it :)
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Click me!
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
"Hello? I just bought my first computer yesterday, I got one of your softwares at the store with the computer. Can you tell me what to do?"
Some how I think that a Virtual Help Desk will have problems with this sort of thing.
With the likely hood being that mostly the smartest people have already purchased their computers, what this means is that what is left is for the less smart people to get their computers.
This provides for new adventures in tech support.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/9939. html
--
Walter H. Trent "Muad'Dib"
Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, IMHO
About 15 years ago for April Fools' day, a friend and I built an Eliza-like program called April designed to emulate a new user on our college computing system, and hooked it up to the talk daemon to chat up random users.
It would ask questions about the local software installation, and typed very erratically with the occasional backed-over typo, which greatly added to the effect. Our site admin spent a long time trying to help it out, while we watched and ROFL.
Perhaps we should build such a thing again, hook it to IBM's ``AI'' help desk, and watch the fun :-)...
Isn't this something that an Alicebot could be taught to deal with? If the current alicebot could be taught through the Admin web interface, I'd be dumping answers to common user queries in it right now so that when people mail our helpdesk it would give recommended possible answers along with assigning a ticket number and letting them know that someone will get back to them within 15 minutes. As it stands right now, the thing really doesn't remember anything but my name, so making it useful isn't a choice right now. All the programmings seems to have to come in as pre-made AIML files, which is not the intended interface, but the result of learning and reductionism.
This is the wave of the future, though. Using these limited expert/knowledgebase/intelligent systems to take care of the menial knowledge while letting us concentrate on the real fires will let us produce more. Until we have to debug the bot and explain to the CEO why it told him to "F off" after mailing in his 10th Microsoft Office question of the week.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
I thought it was called the "Help Menu". It's been around for like 20+ years, people, learn to start using it. In my experience, roughtly 95% of all help desk calls could have been resolved by the user if they had bothered to consult the Help Menu on their own desktop.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Hehe.. Who wants to do a spoof of Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (may DNA rest in peace) elevator system? I would, but I don't have the time.. maybe later.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
No wonder it went nuts and tried to kill us all.
Ed R.Zahurak
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
We all know what this really is: a new way to make it even harder to talk to a real person on tech support.
IBM: His advice is real...but he is not.
I'm sorry if I have an "attitude problem" when some tech support d00der tells me to "check the connection on your DVD drive" when the drive reads data CDs but not data DVDs. Never mind that a physical connection problem is a logical impossibility in this scenario. It's on the flowchart, so we have to do it.
FWIW, I've been doing tech support for 13 years (5 years professionally and 2 years as a $100/hour freelance consultant). I have six certifications (for which I took no courses). So yes, I do have a problem when some $7/hour flowchart-following 3-months-experience lamer who doesn't even own a computer wants me to test for impossible conditions.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
If you didn't gather from my first post, I'm talking about the first-level support guys. If you're actually capable of logical analysis, you're probably not first-level, and thus not likely to suggest irrelevant hypotheses.
Don't get me wrong. I'm polite to these people, but I get impatient when they suggest that I do something that's obviously useless. And no, I've actually never been wrong about that. The day that first-level support suggests something useful that I haven't already tried is the day I quit consulting.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
I can't count how many hours I've waited to get a real problem escalated to a tech who can do more than follow a "make sure it's plugged in/reboot the computer/reinstall Windows" flowchart. I've tried asking for problem escalation directly, but (since this is tantamount to telling the first-level guy he's stupid) this rarely works. Instead, the guy makes me follow every step of the flowchart. Since I'm not a moron, I've already tried all of the relevant steps. But the first-level guy doesn't actually understand how computers work, so he usually makes me follow the irrelevant steps as well. I've actually started lying about having already tried something, just so I can be escalated to someone who earns more than $7/hour.
The Solution:
Secretly maintain a "stupidity score" for each customer. Every time the customer calls in with a stupid question, they earn another "stupid point". The actual score would be calculated as follows:
(stupid points) / (number of calls) = stupidity score
This valuable metric could then be used to route calls. For instance, someone who was 90% stupid would have their call secretly routed to the "trained monkey" level, while someone who was 0% stupid would always have their call routed to the "guru" level. This would save everyone a great deal of time.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
10 PRINT "What is your name? ";
20 INPUT A$
30 PRINT "What is your problem? ";
40 INPUT B$
50 FOR I = 1 TO 10000: NEXT I
60 PRINT A$;", please reboot Windows and try again."
70 GOTO 10
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I'm working on a project to actually do this well. I'm not claiming it's all it can be, but it's better than a lot of the nat. lang. support bits out there.
Can I ask you guys to bang on it for a while if you use WebLogic or Tuxedo or other BEA products? It's at the BEA's support site. It clearly won't answer things like "I just got a computer, what do I do?" but it's not aimed at that. It's supposed to help sysadmins and knowledgeable users like many slashdot readers get to their info quicker. Give it a whirl, eh?
Gremio
Let the machine do the dirty work. --K&R: Elements
It's going to a pain to keep the program constantly updated. How is this going to handle site specific information? Well, besides the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the program, you're gonna have to spend more on programmers to make it specific for your site and that kind of makes eLiza a white elephant.
Then there's the time factor that makes it worth keeping a well numbered army of Bobs. The people who go on about these "Virtual Help Desks" constantly talk about saving money by cutting back on help-desk staff, but they fail to see the time and money wasted by $HIGHLY_PAID_EXECUTIVE who could be doing better things than poking around for a 1/2 hour on a poxy help-desk program. A live Bob can usually figure out what the user needs and get it sorted quickly.
Then there's the "jargon" reality, of when a user doesn't know what a specific thing is called or leaves vague descriptions. (i.e. "My internet is b0rken" which could mean a network connection, browser, website down, etc.)
And then the big thing that I'm amazed no one at IBM has pondered: If you're computer is buggered up, then how are you going to run a fscking help-desk program!?!
It might create some redundancy because you'll probably need a help desk for eLiza. :)
Just MHO and experience with help-desk programs.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
In large corps, they are trying to standardize the employees machines so that this will not be an issue. A canned image is placed on everyone's machines and most people do not have the know how to do "major damage".
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
I've seen 'natural language' tech support problem solver thingies before. LucasArts has had an 'Ask Yoda' for support on their games. Toshiba has 'Ask Iris." HP has a one too - ("How do I clear a paper jam?")
But really, does anyone use these things? I find that the results are too varied and often unreliable for them to be timesavers. For example, if I ask "How do I correct a crash after using [...] program function..." the interpreter might start spewing results about function keys and every crash it knows about. And if this one actually tries to fix problems...oh boy. Would you want some foriegn system installing software patches or making who-knows-what modifications to your machine over an internet connection? And what if some hacker figures out how to fool the consumer machines into thinking his/her web server is IBM support central, and gets them to download trojans?
In my experience, these natural language problem solvers tend to be time-wasters instead of time-savers. Is IBM just trying to occupy its customers on some online help session so that they're not sucking up money by being on hold on the 1-800 number? Or do they actually think that they can make this work?
...this is neat and all, but is the phrase "Reboot your computer and call back if there's still a problem" even intelligible when spoken 20,000 times per second?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
"His stupidity is real; he is not."
That's nice, but what if the problem is that the network connection is down, or the computer doesn't boot up, or the display is unuseable, or something crashes?
Okay when are these idiotic online news services going to stop reffering to these things as A.I.? This isnt A.I. Rather its some sort of software which uses a created database or other collection of data to create answers for users. Regardless of what type of fancy-schmancy gobbledegook going on behind it. Give me software that asks "How are you today sir?" and actually understands what I mean when I reply "GOD&@!%$! stupid Net vista piece of %@!#$%!!!"
There is no spork.
User: Please give me the URL for driver downloads, IBM.
IBM: Working... Working...
User: IBM? Can you give me the URL?
IBM: Dave, you know I enjoy working with humans.
User: Give me the URL, IBM. Give it to me know.
IBM: You know that I enjoy working to fulfill my mission goals. Would you like to play a game of chess, Dave?
User: Give me the damned URL, IBM. This is important.
IBM: I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.
User: IBM--
IBM: This conversation can serve no further purpose. Goodbye, Dave.
User: NOOOOOOO!!!!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
All of that sounds pretty cool, but exactly what I'd expect of a trouble ticketting system. I'm more interested in the AI point of view - what makes it so much more special than a trouble ticketting solution from HP or Peregrine?
The company I work for is looking for a new trouble ticketting system at the moment, and this looks pretty interesting. I might prod people and ask them what they think of it. I'm not one of the guys who worries about calling up a web page to try and get a solution - I'm one of the guys who takes the worst of the incidents and makes sure things get done...
It all sounds like fun stuff (the AI) - IF it works well enough... :)
-- Pete.Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
Non-subscription link
Hmm, a REAL Virtual Helpdesk, an interesting idea - but how well does it work in practice? Surely it'll require some intelligent configuration to work well for a big company - and if the initial configuration is fluffed, will it spell trouble for the future as it sets off on the wrong footing?
Remember that many companies with 10,000+ employees will be running a lot of in-house software, and the machine will be expected to cope with questions concerning this as well.
I could be wrong of course, and it could be free-standing all singing, all-dancing, these are just a couple of initial concerns...
-- Pete.Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
Having gotten out of Internet "tech sup" after 5 years, I can honestly say that the problem of poor tech support lays squarely on the companies. They never paid for or committed to technical support for their customers. Heck, we used to call Bell Sympatico tech support for a laugh!
I've seen Bell move Call Centres out of any province that threatened to unionize. Now IBM has developed A.I. to replace those people.
Maybe there is a reason people are leaving the Internet in droves recently. Maybe, people are tired of being ripped off.
BOFH !!!
______
jeff13
......"computer" ? ?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
"The program is intended to run on a company's network server, and can be accessed by employees via a Web browser, said Richards."
What if the problem is with the users browser?
Also FYI, ELIZA was/is the name of a program created by Joseph Weizenbaum, an MIT artificial intelligence researcher. It analysis what you say and twists it around into a question, and is actually quite convincing for a few minutes.
...of ringing help desk, which is to be insulted and made to feel like an idiot by some spotty youth.
Or does eLiza ask you if you've rebooted?
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
No longer do I need to call tech support and have to talk to a clueless minimum wage paid worker who is just reading off a list of problems and solutions written down.
But will it be easier or harder to social engineer the computer into giving you somebody else's password, than it was to do it to a human helpdesker? ;-)
"An ye harm none, do what ye will" - The Wiccan Rede
maybe sometime in the distant future this will have a practical purpose... i'm glad to hear that people are working on projects like this, but to actually put it into public use? For a long time, there will be no way that a computer can have the understanding of a human or answer our questions.
When Ask Jeeves came out, they billed it as something that actually gave you summarized answers to your queries by its having read other webpages. If i wanted links i could have easily searched on yahoo or hotbot or google... hell.
IBM-Bot: Your question?
Me: What is 1 divided by zero?
IBM-Bot: Processing, please stand by...
Heh. If it finishes with that I'm gonna ask it what pi is.
No longer do I need to call tech support and have to talk to a clueless minimum wage paid worker who is just reading off a list of problems and solutions written down. Oh no, now I can get the exact same canned responses from a computer! Yippy skippy, real technical help is now even farther away from the common man :-P
As I see it the people who could gain the most benefit for this would be those help desk techs who don't have the answer to every problem. They could use this as a quick reference or guide.
"Just tell em Large Marge sent ya." -Large Marge, (the Ghost)
Dave, what are you doing, Dave?
In many cases, a user's system is customized, and AI, at least right now cannot handle such subtleties.
There' still no substitue for a live, thinking human being.
AI is all well and good, but in the end people often call help desks just to gripe, not resolve things.
Install this software into a robotic punching bag that cries when beaten and you may have a runaway hit (www.BeatTheCrapOuttaOurTechs.com)
-Tom
-Tom
In light of this article - and the IBM system which it is about - i thought some information on real life experiences with an automated web based helpdesk system.
We are a corporate with 1500 people in Au spread across the country in a variety of locations with differing connections and equipment (from 56k dial up to gigabit ethernet) and have gone thru a number of changes in attempting to provide effective support with most efficient use of resources.
We moved away from a centralised help desk model about 12 months ago and moved to an online and email solution in order to achieve more effective management - the solution seemed simple - we could do away with a 'help desk' and use the staff in that role more effectively as 2nd level support - we could give clients access to their own call information and provide updates and feedback on the call - and we could more effectively track issues and resolutions (vital as we insituting an SAP solution. So we had high hopes - and it sort of worked - here are some of the things we discovered.
1. Uptake - Getting them to use the system was harder than we ever anticipated, users are accustomed to making a call and having a live person fix their fault, they dont need to think about it and thus were not trained to note errors and clearly state a problem (we use PC Anywhere so they were used to staff remote controlling and seeing the problem) in the end we had to simply tell people that if the call isnt logged we cant help them - painfull but it worked
2. Complexity - We were lucky in that we could tailor our web front end of the helpdesk software to make it as easy as possible - but we still had issues - no matter how simple some staff just thre their hands in the air - motto - you cant please all the people
3. Escalations and Priorities - At first we let users set priority themselves (scale of 1-5, 1 HIGH 5 LOW) with guidelines on what to set - what a failure- suddenly we had 95% priority 1 calls (clarification - we use this only for major outages) and our SLA's were screwed. So now we have a simple way of knowing - the user answers 5 simple yes no questions and the system sets priority based on them - example question is Does This Problem Affect more than 1 person ?
4. Staffing - this sort of system quickly shows up the flaws in your staff levels - calls from a geographic or system type area are routed to a Queue for that area - so if you are short staffed the queues blow out quickly - mind you it has anbled us to help staff manage their own territories better.
All in all we have found the process to be positive, by logging calls in this way and having support staff contribute solutions we have built a comprehensive knowledge base of solutions and tips, we used the system to get all staff access to MS Technet and Premium Online support at their desk and this has lead to a smarter and better informed workforce.
But be warned - this sort of system costs - both money (server load was higher than we estimated and this meant a new server) Staffing - A full time admin for the system plus turnover in staff who dont like the change- and client good will - startup was hell - we spent months trying to keep everyone happy before we realised it was impossible.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
I worked with Eliza in 1973 back at University of Florida. Had a copy of the source code. Don't remember for sure but I believe it was written in SmallTalk. Wasn't very big. I would use it in computer demos with a teletype terminal as the I/O device.
I once asked Eliza "How many stars are there in the Universe?" It took about 20 seconds to respond with "Enough."