Tutorial SEVEN

1) Check this link to my ‘intelligent’ cybertwin which I also mentioned in the Power point. You may like to create your own cybertwin as well. The more you 'train' your twin, the better the responses will be. While it is just a fun exercise, Think of the opportunities. Imagine if we had a cybertwin that could answer your questions about the course. Or perhaps a shopping assistant?

A.  So I went and had a chat with Ian's cybertwin and he is quite rude, I must say. This is the chat we had below. 

You: Heyyy :)
Ian: Hello, just catching up on work are you?
You: Of course, doing some e-business tutorials...
Ian: Yes. You see my point of view because I am always right.
Ian: Have you thought about studying eBusiness?
You: Yah, I am studying it at the moment. It is quite interesting isn't it?
Ian: Maybe, maybe not. I have a short attention span.
You: What is that got to do with anything?
Ian: I am not telling. I am drying my hair.
Ian: What job do you se yourself doing in 10 years?
You: Errm Im not sure, okay good day :) BYE
Ian: Good riddance.

This is not the first time though that I speak to such a machine. Often, customer services often have a machine speaking to you at the beginning, until you actually ask for an agent, until then the rest of the service is carried out by the machine. I do not feel that technology should replace human interaction because it feels so unreal and cold. 

2) Write a one paragraph describing the Turing test and another paragraph describing an argument against the Turing Test, known as the Chinese room. 

A. The Turing Test

This is a test of the ability of machines to think intelligently and was introduced by Alan Turing in 1950 and involves a human judge, a human and a machine who are all separated and the judge talks to both the human and the machine via a computer and has to decide which one is a machine. If the judge cannot distinguish between the two, the computer wins. Anyways to prove that a machine has artificial intelligence, it must be able to think, act and be aware of what is going on. 

The Chinese room

This is an argument against the existence of true A.I, presented by John Searle who believed that a computer who can pass for a human in a conversation test isn't necessarily intelligent. He argued that the computer was just carrying out orders in a program and has no understanding of what is going on, nor any free will. John thus argues that " if he was alone in a locked room with an English version of a computer program, paper, pencils, erases and a filing cabinet and was fed Chinese characters through a slot in the door, he could use the program to process them and produce Chinese characters as output without knowing the Chinese language. This reinforces John’s argument that, without understanding, we cannot describe what the machine is doing as thinking."

3) Can virtual agents succeed in delivering high-quality customer service over the Web? Think of examples which support or disprove the question or just offer an opinion based on your personal experience. Write you answer on your blog page or express an opinion on this voice discussion board (it's simple to join). If you choose this option please link (live in an hour or so) to it from your blog page.

A. I really do not think that virtual agents can succeed in giving a good, high-quality service over the Web. Virtual agents do not have much information and ability to use. They do not have thinking power and can only deal with problems they are pre-programmed to solve, so if anything new comes up they would not be able to deal. There can also be lots of technical difficulties. They can't have information basis as much as Humans and can't fulfill the expectations of customers completely, because it lacks the warmth and variation and human feel that would make a customer comfortable to deal with. 

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