The future of the Internet: a multilingual chatbot

In our digital age, it can be difficult to keep up with all the technological advances. So if you don’t know what a “chatbot” is, you’re probably not alone. Let’s start with the definition of that term. Essentially, a chatbot is simply a type of computer program that strikes up a conversation with people, either through text messages or audibly. Popular chatbots include IBM’s Watson, LiveChat, and LivePerson, to name just a few. But even if you don’t own one of these devices, you’ve probably interacted with a chatbot without even knowing it. Today, many companies implement this technology, particularly for information gathering or customer service tasks.

Given the global nature of our modern world, as well as the fact that chatbots are already a form of artificial intelligence in common use, it is probably not surprising that one of the most sought after products in this field is the multilingual chatbot. The technology is still in its infancy and it’s easy to understand why. Programming a chatbot with the ability to translate languages ​​simultaneously is extremely complicated and time consuming. There are rare examples of multilingual chatbots on the market today, such as Language I/O® Chat, a product designed to be a customer service tool, but they are few and far between. However, the day will come when a variety of multilingual chatbots will be available to businesses. After all, there are several situations where these programs would come in handy.

But nowadays, more often than not, the companies that would benefit most from multilingual bots opt to create separate bots for different languages. This makes sense considering the complexity of creating a multilingual chatbot. But whether you have a business that would benefit greatly from this type of program or not, it’s important to remember that what we’re really talking about is machine translation. As much as some of us would like to believe that artificial intelligence is capable of high-quality simultaneous translations in multiple languages, there are many challenges to overcome before that can be achieved, challenges such as:

• Differences in the use and meaning of words between different regions, even if they speak the same language.

• Cultural sensitivities must be understood and considered to ensure that you do not alienate or offend your users.

• Before translation can take place, your multilingual bot must have the ability to understand what language a user is speaking, so you must include a language detection tool, but this type of tool will only work if you already have a language base. multilingual data.

• Regional accents can vary greatly, so it would be better to implement several rather than limit yourself (and your target audience) to just one.

And these are just some of the problems faced by companies embarking on the task of creating their own multilingual chatbot tools.

Although the task is incredibly daunting, there is no doubt that businesses would benefit enough from a multilingual chatbot to make it worth the time and effort to try and develop one. But in the meantime, at least until technology has advanced enough to meet today’s needs, let’s pause to remind ourselves of an important fact: machine translation is no match for high-quality translation services provided by a trained and experienced linguist. experienced. The future of the Internet could very well involve a variety of multilingual chatbot tools, but we’re not quite there yet. If you’re trying to expand your business to reach a global audience in 2018, the most feasible way to do it might be the old-fashioned way: with translation services provided by a real person.