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Google Planning New Messaging App With AI Chatbots (wsj.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is testing a new mobile messaging service. They say one of the defining new features of the service is the inclusion of AI-driven chatbots, which can answer questions asked of them in a conversational manner. Google veteran Nick Fox is reportedly running the team building the messaging service. It's not clear what will become of Messenger or Hangouts, or when the product will launch. "Google would steer users to specific chatbots, much as its search engine directs users to relevant websites. The move is strategic, because messaging apps and chatbots threaten Google's role as the Internet's premier discovery engine."

52 comments

  1. Yahoo beat them to it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yahoo beat them to it long time ago.

    Yahoo!Chat is 99% bots.

    1. Re:Yahoo beat them to it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but Google is aiming for a product that people will actually use.

    2. Re:Yahoo beat them to it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really?

      Two things I use from Google.

      1) Google search, and the moment they added per keystroke search, I hated it, and,
      2) Android, love it, mostly.

      Anything else. meh. The bots can keep it.

    3. Re:Yahoo beat them to it by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Change your preferences at Google and the dumb-ass search goes away. Predictive search or something like that... It stores it in a cookie so you don't have to be logged in but you will want to save that cookie or just reset it every session. I have a fake pseudo-identity that I use which I even allow Google to track my searches and tailor my results. I use it only for very specific searches and through a VPN. I use a private session or a complete separate browser for any other searches. I find it handy and it actually gives me good results - I'm using it *specifically* for search results for tech-related questions. It has an email address associated with it and the information is completely, and totally, made up. I don't even use the email address as a spam email.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    4. Re:Yahoo beat them to it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Parent is implying that nobody uses Yahoo chat.

  2. WTF? by vikingpower · · Score: 1

    messaging apps and chatbots threaten Google's role as the Internet's premier discovery engine

    I mean, wtf??

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
    1. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't tell Siri to google a restaurant for you, do you? You ask Siri to recommend a restaurant.

    2. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't tell Siri anything. She's only slightly better at following commands than my turtle.

    3. Re:WTF? by vikingpower · · Score: 2

      I use neither Siri nor any Apple product. Besides that, I don't *speak to computers. Nor do I chat with them. Speech & chat are communication forms for human beings.

      --
      Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
    4. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF may refer to:

      Language and expressions

              wtf, language code for the Watiwa language, a Transâ"New Guinean language
              WTF, an acronym for "What the fuck?", an expression of disbelief

      Art, media, and entertainment
      Games

              Work Time Fun, a video game for the PlayStation Portable

      Music
      Albums

              W.T.F. (Wisdom, Tenacity and Focus), by rapper Vanilla Ice
              WTF?!, by industrial band KMFDM, 2011

      Songs

              "WTF?" (song), by OK GO, 2010
              "WTF", by Heart from Red Velvet Car, 2010
              "WTF", by Wiz Khalifa from Cabin Fever, 2012
              WTF (Where They From) from Missy Elliott, 2015

      Periodicals

              The Daily WTF, a blog about information technology "perversions"
              WTF with Marc Maron, a podcast hosted by comedian Marc Maron

      Television

      Episodes and segments

              "W.T.F." (South Park), (Wrestling Takedown Federation), the 191st episode of South Park
              "WTF", a segment on sexual fetishes on G4TV's Attack of the Show

      Series

              Weird, True & Freaky, a documentary series on Animal Planet

      Stations

              WTF (TV channel), the former name of the British music television channel, Planet Pop

      Computing .wtf an Internet top-level domain

      Science

              "WTF star" ("Where's The Flux"), or KIC 8462852, an unusual star
              A nickname for WT1190F, a large piece of space debris that came down to Earth on November 13, 2015

      Organizations and sports

              ATP World Tour Finals, ATP WTF
              Western Task Force, a task force in World War II's Operation Torch
              Wikileaks Task Force, formed within the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to study the Wikileaks organization
              Williamstown Theatre Festival, a regional theatre in Williamstown, Massachusetts
              World Taekwondo Federation

    5. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clueless techno-idiots. They have run out of good ideas.

    6. Re:WTF? by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      messaging apps and chatbots threaten Google's role as the Internet's premier discovery engine

      I mean, wtf??

      This is a partial revival of Google Wave, which allowed any third party developer to create bots and share it with others.

      It's a cool idea, but it's more of an engineer's personal itch than a real problem people are facing.

    7. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Smarterchild

    8. Re:WTF? by sglewis100 · · Score: 1

      It depends. You might ask Siri to recommend a restaurant. You might already know where you want to eat and just ask Siri to find it (for directions, to get the number to make a reservation, etc).

    9. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might follow those directions to the restaurant. You might find yourself enjoying a delightful meal at the bottom of the grand canyon. You might look to your left and see a coyote and ask Siri for coyote pictures to confirm.

    10. Re:WTF? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      In general, I agree. In practice, I have been mildly amused and spent far more time than I should have chatting to a chat bot. I know... I know... But, well, from my perspective the tech has gone so far in these years that I find it amazing. We've gone from dumb terminals and mainframes to a supercomputer on our desk and now back to terminals and everything "in the cloud." That's just the start!

      So, yeah, I admit that I've wasted more time than I should have chatting to a bot. In my defense, I was probably high, drunk, or both in all except the last time. The last time, well... I was pretty sober and I still spent about an hour poking at it. I'm not sure why they claim they are Touring complete. If I asked it any even moderately complex questions the thing responded with things no normal human would respond with. I concluded that the people testing it were stupid and that it was no such thing.

      Also, I blame being retired and bored. ;-)

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  3. Perfect by DarkOx · · Score: 2

    The was a vast shortage of ill-considered responses by people who did not really read the question on the internet. I am glad Google is coming to save us from that absense of automatic human responses, with real automation.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    1. Re:Perfect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Google, give 'em a break - sort of the 'special needs daycare' of the tech world. I mean, yeah, some of them are "gifted"... that's what we tell them.

    2. Re:Perfect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The was a vast shortage of ill-considered responses by people who did not really read the question on the internet. I am glad Google is coming to save us from that absense of automatic human responses, with real automation.

      "I am pleased to be reading this post. It is my understanding that you are interested in solutions involving the artificial intelligence. Google has the artificial intelligence, you should probably try doing the needful there!"

      The depressing thing is that about half the "answers" I find to Windows 7/8/10 problems on social/technet.microsoft.com are from Microsoft "MVPs" who "recognize that you are having troubles with your system and have you tried using Windows Defender to make sure you are not the having of a virus that is compromising the (redacted) file. If this is okay then maybe you should be the updating of your drivers!" and this shit from humans who can't be bothered to read the question is actually drowning out the answers to the problem.

      NO, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS,, I'm not asking how to make the error message go away, I'm asking how to disable the fucking telemetry in the first place when the fucking operating system itself doesn't respect the file that links IP addresses to fully qualified domain names, and it is most certainly not compromised with a virus when I edit it with a fucking text editor.

      /redacted a few words for the autist-who-shall-not-be-named, because that sort of question is only a symptom of a much more general problem: humans that act like chatbots.

  4. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google to squirt generous amounts of magic AI juice and deep learning on all things GOOG

  5. Google Now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Maybe they could start with fixing/upgrading/making passable the conversational commands in Google Now.
    I don't understand the reasoning behind rolling out a product entirely based on a feature they haven't gotten right in their current offerings.
    Oh well, I guess it will just be one more Google product that launches and gets euthanized a year or two down the road.

  6. Embedded advertising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So, I guess if you are discussing something, the bots will insert into the discussion promoting something.

    "Gee my bread isn't so good."

    Bot : "I find King Arthur flour solves my issues."

    Remeber kids, Google is an advertising company that develops tech to increase their ad penetration.

    1. Re:Embedded advertising by vikingpower · · Score: 1

      And I already do feel so penetrated by their ads.....

      --
      Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  7. App for apping apps while apping apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apps!

    1. Re:App for apping apps while apping apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apps?

    2. Re:App for apping apps while apping apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Appvolution!

  8. Less jobs for humans! by gti_guy · · Score: 1

    Is it just me, or does this smack of obsoleting more jobs? Nice way to improve the world Google.

    1. Re:Less jobs for humans! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The confusing part is the jobs that are being automated. Meanwhile there are problem spaces where we have a shortage of people that could be nicely translated to computer algorithms (like medical diagnosis) relatively ignored.

  9. Discuss by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google Planning New Messaging App With AI Chatbots

    How do you feel about Google Planning New Messaging App With AI Chatbots?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Discuss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google is the maker of the Chrome browser, Chrome operating system, and google search. Do you use Google?

    2. Re:Discuss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I feel with my hands.

    3. Re:Discuss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hello Hans, I am Google Chatbot, why are you feeling that way?

  10. A migration of services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I remember being able to text (SMS) Google at 46645 for weather, sports scores, search results, etc. Yahoo also provided a similar function at 92466. I miss that.

  11. Google Planning New Messaging App With AI Chatbots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and hookers!

  12. the end of pr firm hired goon hypenosys peddlers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's unlikely the era of mono to mono semi-pro military style live wire sucker chatboxing is over? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wmd+deception+starvation .. more likely just ramping up?

  13. Watch for it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know when it is happening when you see a user called Eliza working through life problems.

  14. FOOKING COONTS! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    I'm down with this as long as there's a chatbot with a Scottish accent that curses a lot. Something like this guy who curses out a pizza delivery boy:

    https://youtu.be/rc8V9fgzutE

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:FOOKING COONTS! by messymerry · · Score: 1

      Beam it in, Scotty,,,

      --
      Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
  15. One more place to be invaded by Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That way they will be a bit closer to the useds, milking their info and selling it to who knows who.

  16. Google wants to become Ashley Madison? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    My first though here was that Google wants to become Ashley Madison.
    http://gizmodo.com/ashley-madison-code-shows-more-women-and-more-bots-1727613924

  17. Another terrible Google chat tool? by trawg · · Score: 1

    As Marc Andreessen said yesterday on Twitter, "Google employees will really enjoy using this"!

    I too have little confidence in Google's ability to make a messaging app that people will use.

    For such a giant tech company with so many smart people I can't fathom how they've managed to screw up instant messaging so, so badly. They could have easily had the dominance they have with email if they'd just built a nice, simple, cross-platform version of the old Google Talk client.

    Instead it mutated awkwardly into Hangouts, something which seems weirdly present in different forms on different devices and embedded into certain of their web applications, with varying levels of functionality.

    It bugs me that there's no native Windows desktop client, just some Chrome "app" thing. It really bugs me that the mobile application is is kind of worse than ICQ was back in the 90s - the user list does not distinguish between users that are online, away, or offline. The default view is just a list of your previous conversations. It bugs me that they've hidden the logout option (Settings -> Account settings -> scroll to bottom -> sign out) to basically trick you into running it all the time.

    I am very sure all of these 'features' are intentional and the result of UX experts studying how people use the application combined with how their biz people want people to use it. I know their goal was to make Hangouts more like an SMS tool - they want people sending messages regardless of online status. (I've never been a big SMS user so I don't know how important the SMS integration for an Internet-based messaging app is to civilians; maybe it's a bigger deal than I think?)

    Before Hangouts almost everyone I know was on Google Talk. My relatives around the world used it as a standard communications tool for quick chats and voice chat. Since it has gone to Hangouts they have all (except for one uncle) abandoned it more or less completely - I never see them online any more and I never get any Hangout requests. They've all moved to Skype for voice chat. No idea what they use for messaging.

    I don't want an intelligent assistant. I want to be able to send quick messages to people on my list. I want to know in advance if they're online, away, or offline. I want to be able to set my status to any of those states. I want it to be secure and preferably open source (... realising the latter is a long shot). I want it to NOT CHANGE every few months when some new UI/UX person gets a hold of it. I want it to be simple, stable and reliable.

    Please start here Google!

    1. Re:Another terrible Google chat tool? by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      For such a giant tech company with so many smart people I can't fathom how they've managed to screw up instant messaging so, so badly. They could have easily had the dominance they have with email if they'd just built a nice, simple, cross-platform version of the old Google Talk client.

      They don't even need to bother with a cross-platform client. If they would stick with XMPP, there are already plenty of IM clients for it.

      Which brings me to my initial reaction - why do they need a new app for chat bots? If it's just an AI at the other end coming up with responses to your messages, why don't the existing programs and protocols work? It's not like we haven't had chat bots for 20 years already.

    2. Re: Another terrible Google chat tool? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google's XMPP is broken so that you only can use Google's services. They don't want you using other chat servers. Kinda like their IMAP email - close to the standard but different enough to lock people in.

  18. Perfect for Millenials! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is perfect for millenials, seeing as how almost none of them are remotely able to carry on a conversation with another person anyway (unless it's to order pizza).

    Anything that gives millenials another excuse not to interact with other actual humans or (GOD FORBID) look up from their phones will be widely accepted by these young, infantilized, socially-deficient 20-somethings.

    It's a hoot dealing with millenials at work- most of them can barely look you in the eye and if you try to actually have a conversation with them they become very uncomfortable and look like they're going to cry. And god forbid you actually expect them to do any work, because they'll run away looking for a safe space to hide in. Poor babies!

    At 18, our fathers were jumping out of fucking troopships onto the beach while being shelled and shot at, but these little pussies can barely work up the courage to order a double non-fat mocha-Frappuccino without worrying about cultural appropriation and whether or not they should come out as poly-demi-hemi-sexual with unspecified gender-pronouns.

    Fuck you, millenials, you worthless little chickenshits!

    1. Re:Perfect for Millenials! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      U mad br0?

    2. Re:Perfect for Millenials! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's not mad, just accurate.

    3. Re:Perfect for Millenials! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dad, I told you not to start drinking before noon.

  19. Then we can leave the bots chat with each other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And how will this work?
    It will send messages for me?
    Why are we talking to each other then, let's just let the computers talk.

  20. There is another word for chatbot by taustin · · Score: 1

    And it is spambot.

    Anybody who believes, for one second, this isn't part of their advertising technology knows nothing about Google.

  21. I have nothing to say to Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bunch of gossipy dweebs.

  22. Awesome! No more human intervention needed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google finally cuts out the middle man. Now my phone doesn't need a dick on the other end to send me anonymous unsolicited dick pics.