Bot! zine - Issue #88

Hello everyone! I had an interesting question posed to me this week. I met with a high school student
Bot! zine - Issue #88
By Bot! zine • Issue #88
Hello everyone! 
I had an interesting question posed to me this week. I met with a high school student (Hi, Katie!) who asked about the ethics of using bots to handle some of our day-to-day interactions – in this particular case, I had used x.ai to schedule our in-person meeting. She admitted that she felt a little put off by having been passed off to a bot to find a time to meet. 
I was startled! Maybe because in the tech world, I’ve been passed off to someone’s executive assistant for meeting scheduling so many times, that I didn’t even think of it. But maybe it was more about it being done through a bot rather than a human, and that I didn’t explain the situation before doing the handoff. 
I’m not sure what the etiquette here is! Should we always let people know they’re about to talk to a bot? Is it the bot’s job to let them know? Let me know your thoughts by responding back!
@veronica
p.s. If you’re interested in attending Slack Frontiers, I have a discount code posted in the events section below. Come say hi!

Required Reading
Conversational Commerce: Beyond the Hype
This transition to a conversational commerce paradigm is driven by the world’s growing need for instant gratification. Consumers now expect instantaneous response from companies. They want an on-demand service that is contextual, personalized, and highly relevant. Fortunately for businesses, continuous advances in AI, machine learning, and NLP technologies are enabling them to provide exactly that through smart chatbots.
Podcast: The Fascinating World of Linguistics, Emoji and Conversational AI
Podcast: The Fascinating World of Linguistics, Emoji and Conversational AI
Linguistics is a fascinating and very fundamental part of natural language processing and conversational business. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Tyler Schnoebelen.
georgianpartners.com  •  Share
Pretend to Be a Bot, Rehumanize the Web | Akademie Schloss Solitude: Schlosspost
Pretend to Be a Bot, Rehumanize the Web | Akademie Schloss Solitude: Schlosspost
Net artist Sebastian Schmieg takes a closer look at digital labor and the arbitrary nature and strangeness of online freelance service marketplaces. What happens to us as humans?
schloss-post.com  •  Share
Poncho weather service picks up $2.4 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners
Poncho weather service picks up $2.4 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners
Poncho, the betaworks-backed weather service, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Ventures.
Poncho launched out of betaworks the same year as Giphy and Dots, and uses SMS and email to bring the news to you in an entertaining way.
techcrunch.com  •  Share
How Bots Can Supercharge Your Startup’s Funnel
How Bots Can Supercharge Your Startup’s Funnel
Learn how bots can help you at every stage of your startup, from finding product/market fit, to creating a repeatable sales model, to scaling the business.
blog.drift.com  •  Share
Baidu's ambitious plan for 'everyone on this planet' to use its conversational AI DuerOS
Baidu's ambitious plan for 'everyone on this planet' to use its conversational AI DuerOS
Last month was huge for Baidu. On the same day it opened its conversational AI platform DuerOS to businesses and third parties at its first-ever artificial intelligence developer conference, the Chinese search giant announced it had acquired Kitt.ai, a creator of bots for chat apps like Facebook Messenger, intelligent assistants like Alexa, and smart home appliances.
venturebeat.com  •  Share
10 ways how designing a chat bot is different from designing an app
10 ways how designing a chat bot is different from designing an app
There are some striking differences in designing a product in the chat bot world as compared to any other app or web product. In this post we try to capture some of the key differences.
hackernoon.com  •  Share
Beyond bots: Bringing software into workplace conversations
Beyond bots: Bringing software into workplace conversations
“The goal of bots and apps in the workplace is to bring all the tools people use into the conversations they’re already having, in a more natural, friendly way,” Benson explains (a topic the platform team will be exploring in greater depth at our upcoming Frontiers conference, if you want to hear more from them in person).
slackhq.com  •  Share
@aloebud creator @amberdiscko shares 4 Twitter bots to brighten your timeline
“It’s okay to have some help,” says Femsplain founder Amber Discko. That’s why she created Aloe, an online community focused on self-care. She’s launched a Kickstarter project to turn Aloe into an app that will send “gentle self-care reminders from yourself.” Below, Amber recommends some soul-soothing books, videos, and Twitter bots, and shares her own self-care strategies.
New Bots, Tools, and Directories:
BannedBooks_bot (@BannedBooks_bot)
BannedBooks_bot (@BannedBooks_bot)
Celebrating the freedom to read by tweeting one banned or challenged book every 4 hours. | #botALLY created by @clairesayswhat
twitter.com  •  Share
Destroy This Statue (@destroystatue)
Destroy This Statue (@destroystatue)
This bot finds the more than 700 #ConfederateMonuments in the US and gives you directions to them. Time for a road trip. Data from @splcenter.
twitter.com  •  Share
Conspirador Norteño on Twitter
A pattern you may have noticed: many bot and troll accounts have usernames that end in 8 random digits.
twitter.com  •  Share
Events
Frontiers by Slack Sept 12-13
Use my code for $100 off! SPNSR-GROWBOT50
A two-day conference bringing together industry leaders, Slack customers, developers, and partners to explore how shifts in organizational culture, communication, and technology are transforming the way we work. Be among the first to hear about Slack’s newest product features.
Using JavaScript and Twitter’s API we will create an “intelligent” bot. An easy and fun way to learn how JavaScript can be used to build real projects. Our bot will search for tweets mentioning different keywords and reply to them with a pre-defined answer.
8/30 Everything you need to know before implementing chatbots for your business - IOT Round Table Chicago
8/30 Everything you need to know before implementing chatbots for your business - IOT Round Table Chicago
Chatbots have the capability to become the face of any brand, as it is the direct medium of communication between company and its customers. In this event, we will discuss the best practices that should be followed while creating chatbots.
www.meetup.com  •  Share
8/31 Millionaire's Mixer: Road to 1 Million Bot Messages - San Francisco New Technology
8/31 Millionaire's Mixer: Road to 1 Million Bot Messages - San Francisco New Technology
Join Dashbot to celebrate bots that have reached 1 million messages in less than 6 months. The millionaires will be showcasing their bots and explaining strategies they used to reach this level of growth.
www.meetup.com  •  Share
Please join us for an AWSome talk from Tom Wilson as he presents, “Introducing Amazon Lex and using NodeJS MicroJS/Redux as a pattern for building bots”
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