Daniel: Hello, I am the website greeter. Welcome to WebGreeter.com. How may I help you?
Visitor2863: not a thing. just curious
Daniel: Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you.
Visitor2863: are you a human being, or a chatbot
Daniel: a human, but hey, wouldn’t a bot be saying the same thing?
Daniel: ah well, anyways.. nothing i would say would change a rugged mind.. are you one?
Visitor2863: no, no. i believe you
Visitor2863: you are human. and i hope that at the end of your work, you go home, relax, take it easy and have a good time
Daniel: good that you do sir, so i pass the turing test?
Visitor2863: you did, you sly dog, have a good one.
Daniel: Thanks bunch! I hope you have a good and safe weekend as well!
Daniel: rotfl!

[James' Reply: Sounds like a jerk, to me. What the heck is a rugged mind? Does he mean an appropriately skeptical adult mind? Is he criticizing you for wondering if you are being manipulated by a script? I would think, by now, they would have a more polite and graceful way of answering that question.

The main thing that made me think I was talking to a chatbot was the unresponsiveness of the guy on the other side. I asked questions that were ignored.]

I posed as a genuinely interested customer, throwing a few curve-balls every now and then
to test the water. I was able to tease out many custom responses (rather than scripted ones),
eventually getting the operator to say:
“with that attitude i doubt that you even have a job” after asking it on a date.

I feigned offense, explaining that with such a new and foreign technology, users could be
expected to be suspicious and ask odd questions, and under no circumstances would I be using
a service that would ever insult one of my potential clients… especially with a response that could
be so demoralising in the current economic climate… and was disappointed that the operator
closed the window before i could save the conversation.

I had a second attempt at talking to the operator, some moments later, found here:
http://dave.icy.com.au/webgreeter.gif

I thought I’d share my experiences

Cool, in my book. And the antithesis of botpeople.

Actually Turing in his original paper from Mind, didn’t call it a test, but an imitation game. This is an interesting distinction from the man himself. Which is one reason why I think that people have taken his thinking outside of the true context.

Blay Whitby wrote a really good paper on this:

http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/blayw/tt.html

[James' Reply: It was a test, whether he called it one or not.]

In case not: look at my \website\.

[James' Reply: Any idiot? Any? How could you make such a claim? What evidence can you offer?]

Kevin - The fact that McDonalds can make the same hamburger in a predictable and efficient way comes from a business process.”

Although I am not Kevin, I believe this was reference to Joel Spolsky’s excellent article - Big Macs vs. The Naked Chef. I think you should read it because it concerns the ~decreased~ quality of anything when talent/ humanity is ‘canned’ and the article is entertaining. Laughter is good for people. (No, I have no suppporting evidence for that with me right now.)

It is located at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html

[James' Reply: Thanks for the reference.]

Cheers,
Rusa

I share my experience with PayPals virtual Agent, Sarah:

Paypal sends in agent Sarah to help me sort out my ebay problem. Here is the dialogue. I must admit that I did not initially read the first sentence explaining that she was not human. So, my first entry overwhelmed her. Although, simplifying did not make it any better. To top it off and add insult to my frustration, when I did speak to a real person, she was laughing about the this diaglogue with a coworker and said that Sarah should be a blonde and not a brunette.

Here it is, both sad and hilarious. Thanks PayPal:

Sarah - PayPal :
Hello, I’m Sarah and I’m here to answer your questions about PayPal. Even though I’d like to be a real person, I’m not. I’m programmed to answer your questions. How can I help you?
You :
I am an active ebay buyer. I usually choose to pay for items over $100 with AMEX; however, after reading PayPal’s security guarantee with each transaction, and having to press Yes to Change, when presented with the ubiquitous “Are you sure you want to use a different payment method?”, I’ve relented and relied on direct withdrawal from my bank account. - the obviously preferred method by PayPal. Now I am experiencing a potential problem with a seller (they sent the wrong item). Paypal’s resolution center says that refunds are handled outside of Paypal. If I had charged the item to Amex, I could ask for a hold or refund. Please explain to me how Paypal protects me when I pay with direct withdrawal?
Sarah - PayPal :
Sorry, but your phrase is too long and I will not be able to perform a full analysis. I would be very grateful if you could try to make it a bit shorter and more concise.
You :
So Sarah, you are computerized and not a real person?
Sarah - PayPal :
I’m listening. How can I help you?
You :
Please explain to me how Paypal protects me when I pay with direct withdrawal and do not receive the right item from the seller?
Sarah - PayPal :
Sorry, but your phrase is too long and I will not be able to perform a full analysis. I would be very grateful if you could try to make it a bit shorter and more concise.
You :
Please give me a phone number so I can talk to a live person.
Sarah - PayPal :
If I can’t answer your question, you can visit the Help Center, or contact us by email or telephone. The customer service number will vary, depending on which account type you have.

To find the phone number:
1. Click here for the Contact Us page.
2. If you haven’t already done so, log in to your PayPal account.
3. The PayPal Customer Service phone number for your account is listed.

To contact us by email:
1. Click here for the Email us page.
2. Log in to your PayPal account.
3. Provide the requested information, and then click Continue.

Before we continue, was this helpful?
You :
No
Sarah - PayPal :
I’ve just opened the right page for you.
Sarah - PayPal :
Anything else I can do to help you
You :
If you were a live person, perhaps. But your lack of analytical abilities is not helpful.
Sarah - PayPal :
I’m sorry but I’m unavailable right now. Please try again in a few minutes.
You :
Circuit overload?
Sarah - PayPal :
I’m not sure I’ve understood. Could you please rephrase your question?
You :
Thanks for great blog fodder
Sarah - PayPal :
You’re welcome. If you think of anything else I can help you with, I’d be happy to assist you.
You :
Tip, be sure to turn yourself off before you take a bath
Sarah - PayPal :
I apologize if you can’t find the information you seek by speaking with me. Please enter a new question, visit the Help Center, or Contact Us.
You :
Hopeless
Sarah - PayPal :
Really, that frustrates me… Because I do my best to improve every day. If you think of anything else I can help you with, I’d be happy to assist you.
You :
Bring a human in to assist you.
Sarah - PayPal :
Sorry, I haven’t been designed to discuss human. How can I help you?

[James' Reply: I think this last question is actually intended as rhetorical... Indeed, not being designed to "discuss human", how CAN it help you?

Microsoft tried that with "Microsoft Bob" some years ago. That, too, was a dismal failure.]

It was three minutes after that call was completed (with 100% customer satisfaction) that I realized {nickname} was the CEO, up early and taking tech support calls just to stay connected to the marketplace.

How impractical and inefficient of him. /sarcasm

[James' Reply: You can name the company if you want to. I happen to know you are NOT merely shilling for them.]

—Michael B.

Hmm. I wonder if Howard White actually wrote this, or if he had it written for him? Because “material of the visitor’s interest” doesn’t sound like a phrase I’d hear a native speaker of English utter. Not bashing, just remarking.

Pushing an entire web page at someone is a pretty lazy way to communicate, which I think underlies your point, James. The attitude seems to be:

If it’s in there somewhere, great. If not, I did what my boss told me to do.

Especially infuriating if I, the user, have already read the page in question, and told the alleged live helper that.

Several minutes later, a Safari window popped up with the requisite greeting. I told her that I was surprised that it took a while for them to contact me, and the answer was a human-sounding “Sorry about that”. I sent a question, and the window then immediately disappeared without a trace. Perhaps I was the victim of a software bug in addition to possible flaws in business process.

[James' Reply: Another one of the creepy things about their service is that they control the window, not you. It disappears whenever they decide that the conversation is over, and you can't copy the contents of the window.]

Packers have a whole proceduralised culture that provides behavioural tramlines for just about everything. It’s so complete you don’t even notice it until you solve a problem perfectly effectively one day, by a method that’s not on the list. It might be trivial.. Mappers hardly ever get the upper hand on these cultural issues, but when it does happen it can be hilarious. A packer gave a dinner party and it so happened that over half of the guests were mapper types, IT workers and others. The host pulled a pile of warm plates from the oven, and started handing them to the guy on his left.”Just pass them around!”, he cried cheerfully. Everything went well until he realised he needed to shout “Stop!” [everyone was just passing plates around randomly in an endless loop!] Mappers don’t have a general cultural context to learn from, so we are almost entirely self taught.


[James' Reply: I haven't heard this distinction between mappers and packers. I'll look into it. Thanks.]

Make no mistake about it, when chatting with a BOT you would easily know.

[James' Reply: As you read from my initial post, I did NOT know. It has generally been my experience that the operators communicate mostly in terms of cut and paste, and in the first interaction I had with the service, the webgreeter refused to type natural text to me, while providing "answers" that seemed not to address my questions. You probably have the exact transcripts of what I wrote and what your greeter wrote. I will post those transcripts here for my readers to judge if you email them to me.]

Ask questions about world news, state that you want proof of the human behind the chat screen or something similar. The following is a quick overview of how the service works and the tools including ‘canned messages’ that are normally used. Remember, GOOGLE recognizes webgreeter services as being customer support rather than ad-BotWare, with the condition that there is a delay before a visitor coming onto a website is actually approached by a greeter; that is why we greet after a small delay.

The service:
• Greeters approach visitors with a standard greeting, asking if they require assistance or have any problems or questions regarding the website; normally they also ask visitors exactly what they are looking for.
• Greeters then push relevant pages to the visitor, directly providing the information required.
• Greeters will also present marketing content and deals on products or services that the visitors are interested in, thereby filling a sales roll as well as the greeting role. This role is assigned to them by the website they work for.
In addition to the fact that the greeters use applet based chat windows to converse with clients, they have the following tools at their disposal:
• Canned messages: These are the automated sounding pre stored messages and are basically meant to;

o Control spelling mistakes or typos that could otherwise stir up confusion.
o They are designed so as to free all parties of legal liabilities or misinterpretations.
o They are designed to prevent discrepancies and to provide standardized information.
o Save typing time as our greeters are meant to multitask several chats (making them cost effective), and this makes their work easier.

[James' Reply: The problem with them is that they are the antithesis of human contact. Pre-written messages simply do not convey the message that a human being is with me. Now, if you really want to push pre-written text, there maybe ways to do that without presenting it AS IF the live human typed it in that very second.]

• ‘Push page’ feature: This feature allows our Greeters to directly push a page of the website directly to open onto a visitors browser and is meant to present specific material of the visitor’s interest.

Regards,

Howard White
Marketing Manager
WebGreeter.com

[James' Reply: Thank you for being willing to comment on this thread!]