The podcast series “Shell Game” was quite eye-opening to me, where host Evan Ratliff created an AI bot of himself and tested it in various scenarios (answering spam calls, calling customer service, even calling friends). His approach to testing things out was fantastic, and it really got me thinking about how these AI bots can behave and what’s coming in the future.
One part that’s sticking with me is the idea of AI bots talking to one another, which is certainly happening a bit already and will be growing rapidly in the coming years. If you have people using AI bots to make robocalls, but then have people using AI bots to screen them, you’re going to have a lot of bots talking to one another. It’s similar to the idea of using AI on both sides of an email conversation.
Bot conversations are inefficient
What struck me was just how inefficient those bot conversations are. Compared to the speed of computers, human speech is painfully slow. A typical human speaks at around 150 words per minute, whereas a computer can easily process millions of words per minute. Rather than having two AI bots convert everything to human speech, if they had a way to negotiate directly using text it would be far more efficient — a 30 minute “conversation” could be done in seconds.
That said, what is the purpose of AI bots talking to one another? The biggest use of them today seems to be spam-related (or “customer service”). The spam pieces are fine, as inefficiency doesn’t matter. How about with customer service? If I need to rebook a plane ticket and I send a bot to do the work, why do they need to “talk” through everything? There should be some kind of mechanism where they can connect directly and just knock things out.
This opens a new can of worms related to protocols and connection methods, as there are already thousands of types of bots out there, so getting them to “connect directly” is far easier said than done.
Of course, as Evan shares in his show, maybe the time that they spend “talking” is irrelevant. It’s not tying up a phone line in the traditional sense, and the time it takes them to accomplish something isn’t usually a big deal. Maybe working through the unnecessary human speech pathway isn’t a big problem.
AI bots are changing things quickly, and it’ll be interesting to see where we end up in a few years. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out the Shell Game podcast and see what kind of thoughts it conjures up in you.
