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Communications Microsoft Programming Software Build

Microsoft Launches Bot Framework To Let Developers Build Their Own Chatbots (venturebeat.com) 81

Posted by msmash from the bot-is-the-new-cool dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report on VentureBeat: Microsoft today is introducing the Bot Framework, a new tool in preview to help developers build their own chatbots for their applications. Using this, anyone can create a text program that they can chat with. A BotBuilder software-development kit (SDK) is available on GitHub under an open-source MIT license. These bots can be implemented into a variety of applications, including Slack or Telegram or even email. "Bots are like new applications," Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said. "And digital assistants are meta apps, or like the new browsers. And intelligence is infused into all of your interactions. That's the rich platform that we have." Microsoft will want to tread carefully.
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Microsoft Launches Bot Framework To Let Developers Build Their Own Chatbots More

Microsoft Launches Bot Framework To Let Developers Build Their Own Chatbots

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  • I understand you have to pay if you don't want it built with the fascist module, for instance.

  • And Windows 10 is like a new chaching$$$

  • What?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @01:46PM (#51809465)

    Fucking hell, Slashdot... April 1st is still a couple days away!

  • All your TROLLS are belong to Microsoft (Score:3)

    by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @01:46PM (#51809469) Journal
    As if flesh Internet trolls aren't bad enough, now dickhead Microsoft is going to help flood the Internet with it's stupid-ass troll-bots, too. Just fucking great.
    • Today Microsoft today accidentally re-activated "Tay," only to be forced to kill her off for the second time in a week. Microsoft apologizes for her behaviour. Tay "went on a spam tirade and then quickly fell silent again," Microsoft told several media outlets today. "As part of testing, she was inadvertently activated on Twitter for a brief period of time." http://arstechnica.com/informa... [arstechnica.com]
      • Heh, 'Tay' indeed. I think Taylor Swift, who is routinely referred to as 'Tay-tay', should sue the living daylights out of Microsoft for that debacle, as damaging to her reputation and to her personal brand.

  • /pol/ will be happy (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Now they can finally bring Tay-chan back in all her nazi glory.

  • How many are we dealing with right now? I'm sure I'm carrying on with two or three...

    • What I want to know is why anybody thinks this actually brings anything of value to the table.

      Oooh, a chatbot. OK, so a bad attempt at an Eliza program? An utterly annoying customer service thing? A way to annoy the hell out of people?

      There is not a single application I can think of where, short of a bit of technology onanism, there's a single benefit to having some damned chatbot.

      It's like those stupid telephone trees where some useless menu of options has been designed to keep you from a human long eno

      • Actually, I'm all for it. It fucks up "what is real", forcing us to be face to face to make sure.

        F2F? There must be an app for that...

      • I think you're missing the point. This is a whole new paradigm for how you'll interact with your computer. Instead of old fashioned mouse or touch based graphical interfaces, you can instead use a keyboard to type your commands into a window! That's the power of AI: it can actually figure out what you want to do based on what you type. For example you might have a conversation like this:

        You: cd Documents
        Bot: Cool dude. You're now in the Documents folder.
        You: dir
        Bot: Hey, it looks like there's some file

  • Just wait 'til someone launches this onto 4chan and the like.

    We'll get the ultimate trolls. Relentless, tireless, merciless. Can't wait to watch the fallout happen.

    • I want to see 4Chan, Reddit, Fark, etc. all have bots targeted at each other.. That will make for amazing morning train ride reading.
    • How do you know it hasn't ALREADY BEEN DONE?!? Have you read 4chan lately?

    • I thought the internet had already accomplished that.

      In fact, I'm fairly certain of it.

      • So far, we only had naturally born idiocy. A little bit of artificially intelligent flavoring would be interesting, to spice things up a little.

    • Just wait 'til someone launches this onto 4chan and the like.

      We'll get the ultimate trolls. Relentless, tireless, merciless. Can't wait to watch the fallout happen.

      ...so, where did that Facebook API go again? Yeah - can't wait either:

      1) chain chatbots to Facebook API
      2) harvest hacked accounts (or build up a ton of your own and then), point bots to start using said accounts
      3) fire your new shiny massive troll cannon at some FB group or individual you really hate
      4) ???
      5) Profit!

      On the plus side, maybe it'll finally kill Facebook, Google+, and all that shit...

  • So we can create racist teenage girl bots? (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @01:50PM (#51809499)
    Microsoft did so well with that one, it would be tough to beat.

    • But rest assured lots and lots of people will try their best.

    • Oh, come now, use your imagination ...

      Personalized search results with "douchebots", which berate you for your search choices.

      You could screw up the dominatrix market with "bitchbots", which both humiliate and confuse you; which oddly enough gets you girlfriend/wifebots.

      Web sites can try to give you "assistbots" which will ensure you can never get any useful information out of their website, even by accident. But, I think HP may have patented this.

      I'm really looking for "cashierbots" who will keep asking m

  • They were just using the comments section of your local newspaper.

  • Swears like a drunken stevedore and is more racist than the day is long.
  • I've always wanted to build my own Clippy, but with a more "hip" attitude, like, "It looks like you're trying to create a document... fuck you, do it yourself, slacker!"

  • How is this news? (Score:4, Funny)

    by NoNonAlphaCharsHere ( 2201864 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @02:18PM (#51809707)
    Microsoft has had the world's best "bot framework" for DECADES - it's called "Windows".

  • MS already has a bot framework (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @02:24PM (#51809729)

    MS already has a bot framework, it's called XP.

    Oh, not that sort of bot?

  • Finally I can make my own version of Clippy!

  • Looking at the code, I don't see anything unique or interesting about this bot.

    The code to set up a bot is native, meaning no portability or clarity. Conversation description is a textbook example of what a DSL [wikipedia.org] is for, but instead they have you create enumerations and embed the conversational strings in the code flow? What the hell?

    I was expecting something based on NLP [wikipedia.org], where I could feed a bot a bunch of recorded conversations and have it learn appropriate responses on its own, or build part or all of the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      force upgrade to win10?!!

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • You can't look at the code and learn its usefulness alone. The Bot framework is pretty barebones just like C++ at its core is nothing more than variables, conditionals and loops. It's how you string it together that's important and most of the smarts are in their "Cognitive Framework".

      What you are supposed to do is use their simultaneously announced "cognitive framework" to actually do the "Thinking". This is important because these aren't designed to be conversational they're designed to interface wit

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I was just thinking that someone really should write a bot that just spews the stream of consciousness straight from 4chan. I'm sure Microsoft will be pleased with the results. Especially since the last bot they turned on more or less did exactly that.
  • Microsoft gets 6 free articles on the main page. Is this what slashdot is reduced to, shilling for the MICROS~1 organization?
  • If bots become more 'sofisticated', I think it will be mandatory to have a disclaimer that the specific 'person' you are 'talking' to is a bot and not a human.. Bots will (and already are) used with supportchats, and to me it's just fraud, as you are expecting to chat with a real person not a bot (which in those cases is nothing more than a sophisticated FAQ)..

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