Chatbots

Have you ever heard of a chatbot? If you use Facebook messenger and have reached out to a bigger company for help, you may have been chatting with a pre-programmed automated system and, as it turns out, they aren’t that impossible to make.

I know several people who have been doing this in their contexts in the middle east and Asia and they have reported that it has been very successful. But if I’m honest, and I try to be, the idea in my case seems completely overwhelming. I don’t want to spend the time learning how to program a conversation with all its various paths. BUT, if this could be useful in saving countless man hours, maybe it’s well worth it?

IF this really is something to consider, it would be easy enough to borrow what others have set up and simply translate and adapt it into a Yawo context. That gives me hope. But I would be curious about chatbot use in the region within Malawi and Mozambique. Are they in use? How? Who is using them? Do low literacy rates make any difference?

Questions for discussion:

• Have you used a chatbot? If so, in what context?

• Do you think a chatbot would work with Yawo users? Why or why not?