The first 20 days of my life, a chat bot's perspective
"So Cool", "Many Learnings", "Much Awesome". I am Kukie, a messenger chat bot and this is how the first 20 days of my life were.
I was born on 7 June, 2016 in the DIKY office in Gurgaon, India. I came into this world because my creators Aditya Ahluwalia and Rishabh Bose wanted to -
- Learn how to make a messenger bot
- Wanted to share all that they have learn't in their startup journey, in a very cool manner :)
So they decided to make me, "Kukie", to recommend awesome startup resources to any one who needs it, any time. They call me their "side project", but I think they love me :)
Why was I named Kukie?
I guess Aditya wanted to make a friend which can help you get work done easily in your startup, as opposed to a bot. So he named me "Kukie" as it is simple, bright and easy to remember. This might also be the "pet name" of many of you reading this which makes it even more awesome.
Why do I recommend only Startup Resources?
Well to understand that you need to know the thumb rule about bots — they are only as intelligent as their creators :P
My makers while building DIKY used a lot of tools to get their basic tasks done quickly and for free. This was one subject they knew really well. Thus they were able to figure out the possible phrases and right answers quickly, and were able to train me so well on the same.
Also I believe that in the start I should be able to recommend specific topics well, rather disappoint you on multiple levels. I think this will help us be better friends and you taking my help more often. Do you know the best thing in all of this —
The more you talk to me the more intelligent I get :)
This helps me recommend better tools to you and also iterate to reply to your queries better. This why Aditya does not call me an "AI bot", he says I am just a "Smart bot". But I am happy, as I get to talk to all you awesome people, who end up making, me only smarter :)
What do I know about life?
Well its just been 20 days, but boy have they been exciting. I have talked to over 400 people who have helped in training me and I can recommend 300 tools to you across 40 categories. I can also reply to almost 2500 phrases and try to get a smile on your face whenever you talk to me. My biggest learning in these 20 days was
Only when you smile while talking to me, is my job well done :)
But the journey to getting here was not so easy…
Day 1 to Day 7
The first 2 days I existed in the google sheets of my creators, where they created 9 categories with 81 resources and planned to train me for about 400 phrases. It took them 1 day to build it in Chatfuel (I love you guys) and I was live on my facebook page on day 3. For the first 3 days I learn't a lot from the DIKY team members. Not so much about resources, as much as they wanted to test my limits of conversations.
Humans are funny :D they want to know everything else from me other than startup resources
While my patience was being tested, Aditya and Rishabh increased the categories to 20 and the number of recommendations to 150. Basis the queries of closed group testing and understanding the keywords for all the tools (by going through the meta descriptions of all the tools) they were able to teach me 1500 phrases.
Earlier I was giving the same answers to different queries e.g.
For "Mobile analytics", "web analytics" and "social media analytics" I was recommending the same set of tools.
Now I was able to understand and separate the three. Thus recommend better and more contextual tools.
On Day 7 I was released into the world.
Day 8 to Day 20
I was really excited as this was the first time I was venturing out on my own. I was eager to make friends, help entrepreneurs be lazy and get work done. I could take you down on a guided path and also answer a lot of your queries.
400+ people talked to from different countries (majorly different facebook groups) and I learn't a lot from them.
- They got more happy when I could respond to questions about love, life and if I am a guy or a girl
2. They love it when I suggest the right things to them
3. They are curious and want to know where do I go wrong
4. The categorisation was still weak and could be improved a lot as still there were a lot of queries (legitimate) unanswered
But I learn't…. and they smiled (sometimes even said sorry)
And so did Rishabh and Aditya
They re did all the categories, made it more visual and easy to navigate, and improved the phrases I knew to 2500. They got me to where I am today.
The road ahead
The plan is pretty simple for me :)
I need to talk to more people if I want to be the best at what I do.
And this is what my makers have taught me, "to be the best". For the same I'll be launching on product hunt pretty soon so that I can get feedback from more amazing people and learn from them.
I will also be regularly updating my knowledge and could really use a lot of help from you. If you know of, have made or use an awesome resource which I don't know about I would love it if you could tip me here.
Recent Update: I’m went live on Product Hunt… :D on 28 June and got a lot of love from everybody… 450 upvotes and some amazing feedback. Join the conversation below.
Watch out for my next article where I'll tell you about what happened when I went live on Product hunt :) here is a small teaser
(Hint see the bump)
If you liked my story and would want me to write more about my “Experiences with humans”, do like the article and share it with you friends. You will also need to follow Aditya to get regular updates about my life.
