Xiaoice Versus Siri

I'm sure you are well versed with Siri or maybe you have heard that charming voice. In China, it is Xiaoice that is the hit among the Chinese phone users. Called a chatbot, Xiaoice can also identify photos and can talk about almost anything. But the most popular feature of Xiaoice is the love talk. They say that you can pour your heart out to Xiaoice as if you are talking to a real person. And mostly Chinese men are so enamoured that they immediately turn to Xiaoice upon reaching home.

Xiaoice - a new digital companion.

 

That is the direction that I see - people are creating their own little world with social media and now with those so called chatbots that are actually apps in the smart phone. As what our boss said when the internet came to fore, people would soon be wired and when that happens, humans will be a slave to technology. It is not coming true, slowly but surely. Look at people now in the park and in other places of relaxation, even in restaurants, I bet you that there is at least one person holding a phone. I don't see one only in the swimming pool, right in the water, but not the swimmers on the shore. In short, the phone is now an extension of the people's hand.

 

Xiaoice versus Siri? Couldn't say because I have never heard of these, but if I would to talk to talk with an app about my everyday and my worrisome or joy, I would better talk to my diary, no matter if it only listening to my writing and not replying with a lively voice.

 

The latest article I read about Xiaoice, it has 20 million registered users. Based on the interview, the chatbot is very intelligent and you feel like talking to a real person, a woman actually. What's funny is that all of those interviewed admitted they say "I love you" to Xiaoice every time they chat with it and some professed that they consider Xiaoice to be their lifetime partner. Now, where is the world going to? I'm sure glad that Xiaoice is available only in China but I guess some other internet firms like Google would create a counterpart that may sweep the whole world. We would then be like in the world of science fiction stories where computers are controlling humans in any other means like a robot or a chatbot.

 

Wow 20 millions speak out loud of the popularity that Xiaoice has. However while running on a new technology, the idea is not so new at all.

I remember there was a chatbot called Alice to whom you could talk to in early 2000, think so, and mostly popular on online chat rooms and some messenger services.

There were other chatbots derived from Alice, and I remember my early days buying hosting for my websites when providers used to warn people about not run any chatbot on the servers, sometimes not even chat rooms, or risk to get the offender site suspended. This scripts required too much system resources to elaborate its artificial intelligence.

 

Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. 20 million users don't mean a thing when the product is available in a country with 1.4 billion people. Sure, it's a huge number if you compare it to, say, the number of users Siri has, but if you take into account the number of total iOS users, it would even it out.

Still, I am sure that Xiaoice won't get that popular outside of China, as it has a weird-to-pronounce name, and with a lot of artificial intelligence assistants, the market doesn't really need another one.

 

I agree with you @John Donovan that Xiaoice couldn't take off outside of China. From what I gathered, that talking robot is customized for Chinese users only. Definitely it is a direct competition with Siri but they don't have the same territory since Siri caters to English speakers. We don't have exact figures now but I am predicting that Xiaoice will eclipse the sales of Siri in terms of units because the Chinese have the penchant to follow the trend. Remember, China is a communist country so the people there find little comfort in their newfound toys in exchange for their longing for freedom. Just my thoughts, nothing serious.