AI for UI

Why bots?

Why bots?

• Natural Language is the future - Don't Make Me Think

Why bots?

• Natural Language is the future - Don't Make Me Think

• APIs are getting simpler and cheaper

Why bots?

• Natural Language is the future - Don't Make Me Think

• APIs are getting simpler and cheaper

• Everybody's doing it!

Who's doing it?

• Facebook – Wit.ai

• Google – API.ai

• IBM – Watson

• Microsoft – Luis

• Probably everyone else

Why bots?

• Natural Language is the future - Don't Make Me Think

• APIs are getting simpler and cheaper

• Everybody's doing it!

• They'll be conscious soon, so pick a side

Why Wit.ai?

Why Wit.ai?

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Reasons to use Wit.ai:

• Free to use and open-source on github

• Highly-customizable

• Owned by Facebook

Reasons not to use Wit.ai

• Slightly more complicated to employ than some paid options – API.ai, IBM Watson

• Owned by Facebook

Mark never blinks.

Get started with Wit

• Create an account and get an API key

Get started with Wit

• Create an account and get an API key

• Create a 'Story' - conversation your bot can have

Create a story

• Most bots only need one story

• Define custom intents and entities

• You'll write the functions in the next step

Get started with Wit

• Create an account and get an API key

• Create a 'Story' - conversation your bot can have

• Clone the repo

Node Wit

git clone https://github.com/wit-ai/node-wit
cd node-wit
npm install

npm install node-wit --save
(you will likely need express and body-parser, too)

Don't fear the Repo!

Get started with Wit

• Create an account and get an API key

• Create a 'Story' - conversation your bot can have

• Clone the repo

• Code some functions

Code some functions

• Starting point provided in repo

• Set props on the 'context' object

• Add 'actions' to the 'actions' object

API Integration

• Most actions require additional APIs

• Calls to those servers are async

• Use ES6 Promises!

Integrate

• Facebook Messenger with 'webhooks'

• HTTP API for live pinging the Wit server

• Express app for other stuff

“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work!”

- Thomas Edison (maybe)

Post-reading:

• Wit.ai API docs – https://wit.ai/docs

• chatbotsmagazine.com – "How Bots will completely kill websites and mobile apps"

  https://chatbotsmagazine.com/how-bots-will-completely-kill-websites-and-mobile-apps-656db8e6fc03#.r1i6svikf

• A review of Natural language APIs

  https://medium.com/@Conversate/natural-language-apis-for-bots-e791f090e32f#.wyl2yxchb