Why You Will Soon Be Sharing Your Deepest Secrets With A Robot

This will be the largest cognitive leap in human history.

May 12, 2016 · 6 min read

What if I told you that in my vision of the future you are going to start sharing your most intimate thoughts with robots instead of people?

I know, you think I’m crazy. Bear with me.

Why will we start sharing our most intimate thoughts with robots? How will this work? Why is this about to happen?

I will answer these questions right now. Let’s get to it.

Why We Will Share Our Most Intimate Thoughts With Robots

It’s going to change everything.

Most people don’t realize this yet, but artificial intelligence is about to be integrated into everything. The technology, although decades old, has recently become advanced enough that a skilled programmer, even one that’s not an artificial intelligence expert, can start integrating it into their consumer-facing products that you touch and feel everyday.

“Artificial Intelligence algorithms are continuing to improve, however although the algorithms may be open source, the benefits seem to accrue to those with the most data on which to train those algorithms. So the core competency needs not only to be applying the right algorithms to the right problems, but being the primary source for a unique data set.” — Matt Hartman, Director of Seed Investments at Betaworks

What does this mean? It means we’re not only going to start talking to the computer instead of pushing buttons, but the computer is going to start talking back!

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So, out of all the things we can tell our computer, why would we tell it our most intimate thoughts and our deepest secrets?

This Is My Theory

I believe that there are certain types of conversations people would rather have with a robot than with another person.

Why? Because a robot will never judge you.

“Over 20 million Asian users have added Microsoft’s XiaoIce as a friend, often turning to the anonymous, non-judgmental bot for emotional support.” — Joe Medved, SB Capital Partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures

The robot doesn’t care if you are inexperienced, unhealthy, or financially illiterate. You can speak with a robot in detail and with complete openness without any fear of embarrassment.

Because of this, there are products and services that robots are uniquely positioned to make possible.

Even now we are seeing people turn to incognito Google searches and anonymous forums to secretly ask questions and find answers.

“As for types of bots that you would prefer to a human, I’d say these are bots that are providing information that you could be searching for in “Incognito mode” in browser, such as medical info, making a surprise gift, etc. You might also rather talk to a bot if you just want to talk to someone (first chatbot, Eliza, was created as a psychotherapist) or play something like a magic 8-ball asking for a random advice.” — Ilya Gelfenbeyn, CEO of Api.ai

So think about this: As computers evolve to the point where they are no different than a super intelligent supportive friend that will never judge us, will we begin to ask questions that we don’t even dare to ask now? Will artificial intelligence enable us to reveal more about our more intimate self?

“The question is not whether the tech is there, but will people trust it? To foster the type of trust and intimacy typically reserved for our closest human relationships, we need to infuse brand and design into the core product development process. We’re beginning to see a shift in user behavior and attitudes around bots and AI, but my hunch is it will take time for human psychology to catch up.” — Carolyn Witte, Google

To conceptualize what services robots could conversationally perform better than humans, we simply need to ask ourselves this question: What conversations and interactions do people currently avoid for fear of judgement?

Think about this question for a second, it’s quite fascinating.

Here are some examples to inspire you.

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Conversations We May Prefer To Have With A Robot:

Asking about a strange rash on your leg.
Filing for bankruptcy.
Asking questions about how to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases.
Figuring out how to fix your credit.
Talking about your recent breakup.

“The more a bot knows about you the more helpful it becomes. For example, if you tell the bot “call me an Uber for tomorrow morning” it should know that you’ve got a flight in the morning and you prefer Uber Black. It is in the user’s best interest to tell the bot as much information as possible (and privacy in most cases will be less important than convenience) and make this information shared between different bots so that they can collaborate.” — Ilya Gelfenbeyn, CEO of Api.ai

Why The Time Is Now

Not only has every major technology company been working on artificial intelligence, but it has reached a point where businesses everywhere are starting to integrate basic artificial intelligence via something called chatbots.

What are chatbots?

A chatbot is a service, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence, that you interact with via a chat interface. The service could be any number of things, ranging from functional to fun, and it could live in any major chat product (Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Text Messages, etc.).

Chatbots are the first applications that enable brands to interact with the billions of people using the world’s most popular messaging platforms.

“I think there is going to be a window of time where people aren’t sure they are talking to a computer or person. But soon we will develop different expectations and languages to know.” — Josh Elman, Partner at Greylock

To learn more about chatbots read my guide here “The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Chatbots” (over 25,000 people have found it helpful).