Meta and some startup called Sierra just announced they're creating technical standards for AI bots. The chaos they're taming is entirely theoretical. No one is doing business with AI bots at scale. They're solving a problem that might arrive in 2028 by forming a committee in 2024.
Sierra belongs to Bret Taylor. He chairs OpenAI's board. He also ran Salesforce as co-CEO before that imploded. Now he's back with a company that makes customer service chatbots because apparently watching people get trapped in phone trees wasn't dystopian enough. Let's make the robot sound friendly while it refuses to process your refund.
The standards will make it easier to do business with bots. Easier than what? The current system where you can just ignore them and call a human? The future system where every company forces you into a text interface that can't understand "I need to cancel my subscription" without asking if you've tried turning it off and on again?
Meta's involved because Zuckerberg saw AI happening and decided the metaverse could wait. Smart pivot. Trade one vaporware hype cycle for another. At least this one doesn't require buying a headset that makes you look like you're fleeing a chemical spill.
Tech standards always work great. Remember how USB-C unified everything immediately? How Bluetooth pairs on the first try? How every website loads the same way in every browser? This will go just as smoothly except now the thing that doesn't work will also hallucinate product details and charge you twice.
Retail traders will somehow find a way to lose money on this news despite none of these companies being publicly tradable vehicles for this specific technology.
Photo by Julio Lopez on Unsplash
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