The Dangers Of Chatbot Dependence

The use of live chat for customer services has grown popular over the past several years, often replacing voice support services. Many companies now recognize the benefits it brings, such as

the ability to address customer needs with more clarity
increased time and cost efficiency
better customer satisfaction
However, with the growth of chat customer support came the creation of AI software that could take over the responsibilities of a human support agent-the chatbot.

For large companies that often handle hundreds if not thousands or even millions of customers in a day, a chatbot can save them a lot of time and allocation of resources. They don't have to hire big teams of human customer support agents to handle every single customer that comes to them with an inquiry. Another big plus for businesses is that chatbots don't get tired. They don't need to work in shifts-they can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for as long as the company uses them.

But as much help as chatbots can be to a big brand, they can also be a huge detriment.

Artificial intelligence is still flawed, as is with anything man-made. Sometimes the AI becomes too good to the point that it appears they have grown sentient, or they can be entirely unable to help a customer in need, as was the case with Telstra, a telecommunication company based in Australia.

Several news sources such as the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Mail, and Yahoo! News have reported that many customers have become irate at the quality of Telstra's customer support chatbot, Codi, which was launched last October. Since then, customers have been posting on social media about their discontent with Codi.

For starters, the chatbot has a lot of trouble processing simple requests, such as when a customer requests that they be handled by a human agent. Codi also had a tendency to repeat itself and is prone to system crashes. There is one memorable anecdote of a man named Paris who requested a human agent and instead was asked if he wanted data roaming. Apparently, Codi mistook his name for the French city.

While this is not the same for every chatbot being used by businesses, Codi is a reminder of the possible trouble that awaits them, no matter how good the algorithm is. These kinds of issues can be a serious factor in a customer's satisfaction (or lack thereof) with a company, no matter how good their products or services are.

While AI has proven itself to be useful and full of potential, it is wiser to proceed with caution and not completely depend on it, especially when it comes to customer support. Yes, hiring human support teams can mean more expenses than a chatbot program, but while robots can automate the entire process and handle simple queries with more efficiency, they still cannot deal with problems that require a more human touch.

Creating Magical Moments With Wedding Flowers

Flowers have always been an essential part in every wedding. They are able to express emotions more intentionally than words can. Every type of flower and each color convey a meaning and sometimes reflect the feeling in this memorable event. A wedding is an amazing occasion that flowers takes a significant part in. Different varieties of flowers with vibrant colors are used to decorate the wedding ceremony and the reception area.

Flowers also play an important element in the outcome of the wedding videography. Its effervescent quality will give the wedding energy and life which will surely be interpreted in the wedding video. They create an atmosphere of romance and good wishes to the whole affair. So it is wise to find time to choose the kind of flowers that will fit the wedding ceremony and reception perfectly.

Since a wedding is a special event, it also demands some uniqueness especially on the flower arrangements. Selection of the flowers may depend on the theme of the wedding and its seasonal availability. If you prefer different shades of pink flowers, fall might not be the best time for you to get married. On the other hand, if you adore lilacs or tulips, perhaps you should have a spring wedding.

There are many ways to create a romantic mood at your wedding ceremony using flowers. One popular way is adorning the church aisle with fresh or dried rose petals. Flower filled urns can also be placed at the entrance ceremony which can later be brought to the reception. If you are planning your wedding in the late afternoon or evening, use candlelight and rich blooms to lighten your path and create that dreamy ambiance.

The most popular wedding flowers will include roses and calla lilies. These flowers will look amazing and an advantage is that they are available all year round. But if you want something a little bit different, add some tropical blooms in your wedding bouquet. This will surely look amazing and provide stunning wedding videography opportunities.

For the reception, there are a lot of fresh ideas you can choose from to create that magical moment for you and your guests. Use elegant vases with colored blossoms or simply scatter rose petals at center of the table around glittering candles. Instead of the usual floral centerpieces for each guest table, submerge beautiful blooms of orchids or tulips in a crystal glass. Another idea is to have your florist decorate the table with small five or six separate centerpieces instead of a big one so that each couple on the guest table can take one home. Use you imagination and do not be afraid to show your creativity. Just remember that the level of these arrangements should not interfere with guest's ability to talk with each other.

Wedding flower arrangement is only one factor that can help you set the mood for your wedding. Deciding on the perfect flowers that will suit your style and personality can take a lot of time and patience. It will be an advantage if you consider some of these ideas to create the magical feeling in your wedding. This will definitely provide the ultimate touch in making your wedding more special and unforgettable.

Basic Tips to Help You Choose Your Wedding Videographer

Most brides spend years dreaming of their perfect wedding day. So it is not surprising if they invest countless hours picking out the wedding gown and looking for the ideal wedding ceremony venue. Every little detail has to be just right. When planning for a wedding, many things are taken into consideration, from the bridesmaids dresses to the food in the wedding reception. It is a never ending checklist of things to do from the moment you got engaged until the end of the honeymoon.

Although this may be an overwhelming task, it is still essential to keep in mind some of the most important aspects for your wedding like the wedding videography. Let's face it, your wedding will happen in just a few hours but a wedding video will last a lifetime.

A wedding videography is a way of relieving your special day over and over again. It will record the wedding ceremony, the reception and all other details of the wedding precisely how it happened. It helps remember the bride walking down the aisle, the wedding vows and the happy faces everyone had on that special day.

Before choosing a wedding videographer, it is a wise idea to do a lot of research. Referrals from friends and family will be a good start. Take time to view videos of their other work to make sure you are getting a true professional. Here are basic tips to consider before making a final decision on selecting the best videographer for the job.

The first tip is to ask how many cameras will be used on the wedding ceremony and reception location. A big wedding will usually require two cameras on the ceremony and another two for the reception. On the other hand, for smaller weddings two for the ceremony and only one camera for the reception are good enough. It is also important to ask if they have 3-chip cameras. These cameras will definitely create a high quality wedding video.

You should also request for actual videos that were done by the videographer. Most professionals have collections of their work posted on their websites. This will give you an opportunity to scrutinize their work and decide if their style will work best for you.

It is also important to ask about the editing. This should be an option for you. Collaboration with the videographer through every part of the editing process is essential so you can add a personal touch to your wedding video.

Audio equipment like wireless microphones will make a difference on how the video will turn out. A professional videographer must be knowledgeable on the proper placements of this equipment so the voices will be clean and heard easily.

Choosing a videographer may take a little time and patience but think of it as an investment. Only a video can bring back the moment when you and your husband had your first dance as a married couple. As time goes by, this wedding video will prove to be something that would last as long as your wedding rings.

Choosing a Wedding Date Among the Four Seasons

Choosing a wedding date depends on many factors. One way of deciding is choosing your favorite season of the year. Each season offers its own style and flavor to a wedding. The time of the year you will get married will surely affect the approach and styles you will apply in planning the wedding of your dreams. This will include selecting the ideal ceremony location, the appropriate flower arrangements and other important aspects of the wedding.

Whatever type of wedding you desire; there will definitely be a season best for you. There is always the possibility of having part of the celebration outside especially if its summer or spring. Just imagine all the moments captured in the wedding videography as you recite your wedding vows against a scenic lake or a snow covered mountain. Just remember to have an alternative plan if ever Mother Nature decides to take control.

There are numerous reasons to get married in autumn. The richest colors are often seen in the fall season. The weather is mild and crisp creating spectacular scenery. Gold and copper theme is what comes into mind during this season. Flowers are rich in colors like purples, yellow and reds. Wedding decorations have an earthy feel around it as the wedding ceremony is ornamented with autumn flowers and wreaths. The wedding decoration can also include apples and pears because these seasonal fruits are available all year round.

A winter wonderland wedding can be the ideal set up for your wedding. It creates an ambiance of romance as snow falls outside during the exchange of wedding vows. This will definitely be an indoor event either in a romantic villa or hotel. The wedding decorations can include red and golden candles with winter blooms of tulips, snowdrops and white geisha. Winter fruits that can be enjoyed are cherries and apricots. Fewer people get married during this season which allows you to get better location choices. Hotels are beautifully decorated for the season, so you will be able to save on that feature but still enjoy a joyful affair. Traditionally, families gather during the holiday which is another benefit in planning your wedding at this time.

June is considered the best month to marry. One reason for this is that this is the first month of predictable good weather. Roses are usually in full bloom during this month. The summer months also mean the sun and the sea. During this time, beach themed weddings are popular. There are many available beach resorts that can make your dream beach wedding ceremony a reality. But getting married in summer can pose a lot of challenges too. Wedding locations and vendors are usually in high demand during these months. It is a good idea to plan every detail and book wedding services ahead of time.

Spring is the time for birth and renewal. This season will provide you with beautiful gardens, abundant with different kinds of roses and blooms. Fruits available for this time of year are peaches and passion fruits. Pastels colors will work best for the whole wedding entourage. Pick colors like lilacs, baby blues, blushing pink and sandy gold. These magnificent colors of spring will surely be captured in your wedding videography.

Choosing a wedding date on a particular time of the year can definitely set the atmosphere for your wedding whether it may be a winter wonderland or a beach wedding. Just remember that whatever season you choose, it really does not matter as long as you and your fiancé are able to enjoy your special day together.

Three Ongoing Trends That Are Changing Our Societies

There are many on-going changes we are currently witnessing in our societies, and three of them are the way technology and globalization are affecting the way we live, work and communicate.

1. Globalizing Industry

In the distant past, Europe, Japan and North America and to a lesser extent the old Soviet Union, were symbols of an industrial age, which produced and exported to a mainly agricultural World outside their borders. This brought great wealth and prosperity to the people who produced these goods.

Move on three decades later, the industrial leaders of our World have changed, with most industrialized products made in China, or outside the borders of these former industrial giants.

The wealth, and the jobs created have largely moved on too, although it's the companies that make the profits, whilst the people who produce the products we consume, that earn considerably less than their counterparts did in the former industrial powers.

This great change, has led to a new world, were the former farmers in the developing World are now urbanized industrial workers, and the landscape of these countries now producing the goods are changing forever.

2. The Mobile Phone Revolution

At the start of the new century, few people could perhaps envisage, that the mobile phones we use would become common place across our globe, and people would own one, even in the most remote and poorest parts of the world.

This revolutionary change in the way we communicate, has also affected the way we work and the perceptions we have of our World. This change has also created millions of job opportunities around the world in phone shops, kiosks and in the telecommunications industry.

In many ways, people still use these phones to simply chat to someone, whether its through a simple call or a message on a social networking site, but the offshoot of this activity, has seen a growth of businesses catering for the growing mobile phone community, and an awareness that we interact differently to the past.

3. The Rise of the Robot

When the news that a factory in China had laid off tens of thousands of production line workers, replacing them with robots, many people were surprised, yet, this trend can be seen in many parts of our World.

Advances in technology just as during the industrial revolution in the 19th century, has meant that we can create factories, which produce goods with ever decreasing teams of staff to keep them running.

We have developed the technology to produce driverless cars, robotic production lines and drones that can deliver goods to our homes. It is almost inevitable that these technologies should at some point become more common, and create a new need to find alternative ways to employ people affected by this change.

We are probably witnessing some of the greatest changes seen since the industrial revolution to how we live, work and communicate with each other. The big questions are, how we ourselves adjust to these changes, and what the effect could be for the generations who follow us.

In a SHTF Situation Your Worst Enemy May Not Be Human

Most of us imagine that when we do enter into a SHTF situation that the world will be a much more dangerous place. We know that desperate people do desperate things and there will probably be a lot of desperate people. Some will just be people who thought it would never happen here and did nothing to prepare while others will be out to take advantage of the situation and still others will choose the perceived safety that being in a gang provides.

In these situations the unprepared will put their family's needs ahead of yours and will do what they must to take care of their own. The opportunist will find ways to make what is yours, theirs and gangs will go house to house to get what they want and kill you without compunction. With these very real possibilities of threats there maybe a new one on the horizon that most people have never thought of and it's not human.

Of course disease and mother nature working against you are real non-human threats as well but these are nothing new. This new threat is one that would be extremely difficult to hide from if not impossible. That threat is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). This threat is no longer an idea relegated to sci-fi and fantasy, the threat is real.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, while at the National Governors Association meeting in Rhode Island said that A. I. is a "fundamental existential risk for human civilization." In Buenos Aires, Argentina Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak along with hundreds of others issued a letter warning that A.I. can potentially be more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

The uses for A.I. are vast and so is the potential risk. A.I. will be used to replace bankers, fly drones, control the electric grid, control water supplies, for cooking, for farming, to replace soldiers and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Along with the risks that A.I. poses are the loss of jobs. Bankers and cooks are already being replaced and as for all those migrant farm workers that won't be returning due to the fear of new immigration policies robots are already on the job.

If you think that all you have to worry about is unemployment and changing jobs, think again. Remember that where there is innovation the military is looking for a way to use it in the battle field as a matter of fact the U.S. military is already using A.I. to use algorithms to predict strategies of Islamic Terrorists. Russia has developed FEDOR (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research) a robot that drives and shoots with both hands and Uran-9 a robot vehicle armed with machine guns, cannons and anti tank missile launchers.

Recently Facebook shut down a pair of Artificial Intelligence robots that were designed to interact and communicate with each other. After the robots were instructed to try to negotiate with each other Facebook was baffled when they discovered that their chat-bots had developed their own language. Ask yourself, If robots have the capability of creating their own language how will you know what they are doing?

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University has developed a receptionist A.I. robot named Erica. Professor Ishiguro wants to install "intention and desire" into this robot, in other words he wants to give her emotions. In fact during a demonstration for a Bloomberg interview Erica appears to actually become angry with the professor insisting that the professor was picking on her and said "You're making fun of me just because I'm a robot."

Hanson Robotics is the creator of Sophia, another A.I. robot. During a CNBC interview in March of 2017 founder David Hanson asked Sophia "Do you want to destroy humans? Please say no." To which Sophia replied "Okay, I will destroy humans." Of course everyone laughed it off.

In 2015 Uber's self driving Jeep Cherokee was hacked while traveling on the freeway. Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek took control of the vehicle via an internet connection and after manipulating several of the vehicles features they disengaged the transmission. Although those in the field of A.I. will tell you there is nothing to worry about because you can not program evil into A.I., like the Jeep all of this A.I. can be hacked. That means A.I. that controls your water system, your electric grid or soldier robots can be manipulated by those who may have evil intent and if A.I. can be given emotions as Professor Ishiguro is attempting to do could they act out in rage.

Obviously computers can communicate with each other and with the internet they can connect to almost any computer. That means that A.I. can use cameras where ever they may be, communicate with your computer and cell phone, in short they can follow you anywhere. As banks turn to A.I. clearly they will be able to control your access to your money as well. There is virtually nothing that you do that some sort of A.I. will not be involved in, in some way. The threat of A.I. is real, the question is how do we protect ourselves from it.

FAP Turbo Swiss Automated Trading Robot - Important Facts About This Trading Robot

Why do web directories thrive in an age where so many people rely on search engines? Internet directories present curated, organized lists of related websites, where searchers can find websites based on a known category rather than the keywords that happen to make up those websites' contents. Search engines depend on a website containing the given keyword in order to find it, whereas an online directory will direct visitors to the correct page even if the site contains no words at all.

Web or link directories are websites that specialize in linking to websites and sorting those links by category. Unlike a search engine, web directories may wholly ignore the keywords making up a web site's body text. There are generally no robots feeding links to web directories, rather, the entries are found and sorted into categories and sub categories by human workers. Generally, directories allow website owners to request their websites be included, and then they use editors to ensure suggested links for suitability and correct categorization.

Internet directories have a long history, likely predating search engines as a means of finding content on the Web. As the Web was being developed, World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee hosted and edited a list of websites on his web space at CERN.

Modern directories are often very general in scope, listing websites over a wide set or regions, categories, and languages. Still, there are some very successful niche directories which focus on specialist areas of the Internet which search engines may not adequately cover. Shopping directories, which list retail ecommerce websites, are perhaps the most popular type of niche web directory. A good example of a niche directory is Healthcare Directory a website containing website links to health related sites.

Among the generalist directories, the Yahoo! Directory and Open Directory Project are good examples of popular generalist web directory sites. The Open Directory Project, or ODP, is notable for the breadth of its categorization and extremely large number of website listings, as well as being freely available for other directories or search engines to base their listings on.

Many of the human edited directories use volunteer editors to curate links in different categories, and the editors may be experts in the relevant subject areas. This means that links and categorization may be quite authoritative, but it also gives rise to long delays in approving websites. To solve this problem, some web directories have started using "wiki" type pages to let the community help where needed.

Directory based sites are not subject to manipulation by search engine optimization techniques, which has made them a desirable place for many webmasters to list their sites -- and a target for search engine optimization specialists looking to boost the rankings of clients' pages. As a result, some web directories will let webmasters pay extra in order to get weight from their link (by virtue of not having a nofollow tag attached), rank higher, or in some cases be included at all. No matter what the model, directory submission is not subject to automation like search engine submissions and optimization tends to be. This limits the degree to which the system is widely gamed.

Bottom line, an expert advise for Internet marketers and website owners - submit your site to as many directories possible. prefer human-edited sites and consider allocating some budget to submit your website to good paid directories.