Talking with machines


Improving the way that humans and computers communicate has always been a prerogative of the web designer, causing many attempts to get not only humans to understand how best to navigate and use an interface, but also how to best represent a system, so that user actions translate into something that machines can understand. Lately, the idea of a conversational interface, such as those found in Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, has been an approach that has found popularity, especially with systems that involve transactional exchanges, such as buying tickets or booking hotels. The technology that has replaced what was originally a human representative is now, somewhat ironically, resorting to a method that emulates the human that it has replaced, but not without problems.

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