Chatbot Challenge

You have already spent long enough
Trying to solve your problem
By interrogating the Website
Which promised to make your transaction
As simple as a, b, c. – or so they said

But when you find yourself lost
In some digital blind alley
Confused by options
Waylayed by algorithms
Snared in some never-ending loop

It is then that you search for
The ‘get in touch’ contact details

Thank goodness you say
I will speak to someone
Who will surely solve my problem

But of course the website gives
No clue to any contact numbers
But it beguilingly invites you
“To Chat with us”

So you click that link
And it is then that an
Additional little screen materialises
Bottom right

Thereon there appears
In neatly printed letters
Natasha here – can I help you?

Oh great – a human response
Or so you think

But the human person
Has been totally extirpated
From the system
And Natasha is a mere robot

She presents you with a set of options
To questions to which she thinks you might
Want the answer

But how come your particular question
Seems forever missing?

It is then that you feel like
Abandoning the whole mission
Cancelling the order
Complaining to the Ombudsman
Or pressing the self-destruct button

Then you notice, in tiny print,
That in the event that the Chatbot
Hasn’t come up with the right questions
Let alone the right answer

That if you need more help
Tickle a further link
And Lo and Behold

Natasha herself (not the robot)
Appears in print
And the genie has come out of the bottle
And you are on the way to a solution.

Why can’t they have done that in the first place?
Is AI – artificial intelligence –  intelligent enough?

Ken Fisher