Chatbots are over 50 years old, but the technology is still evolving. Despite recent advancements, the history of chatbots hasn’t been all plain sailing.

At just three-years-old, Pepper has worked in restaurants, on cruise ships, and he was even responsible for a 20 per cent increase in foot traffic in a Californian apparel store. Pepper has more emotional intelligence than your average toddler. That’s because Pepper is a humanoid service robot, developed by SoftBank Robotics in Japan.

Roxanne Abercrombie of Business Automation Specialist, Parker Software, explains the role of intelligent assistants for both consumers and businesses.Things didn’t run smoothly when the astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey toyed with artificial intelligence. When asking to be let back inside the spaceship, supercomputer HAL eerily responded, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Thankfully, the pers...

  If planet Earth had been created one year ago, the human species would be just ten minutes old. Putting this into context, the industrial era would have kick-started a mere two seconds ago. In this article, Stephen Parker, CEO of Parker Software, examines whether artificial intelligence is all it’s cracked up to be. 

We all remember Tay? The chatbot from Microsoft, which turned out to be xenophobic and racist and certainly was a lesson in inefficient AI. The experiment, held on a dedicated Twitter account, quickly descended into chaos when the chatbot began sprouting Nazi support and offending Twitter users in various awful ways. 

Digital engagement specialist Parker Software has released ThinkAutomation 4.0, a sweeping update to the company’s leading business automation software. The upgrade adds extensive new functionality to the product, such as sentiment analysis, social media monitoring and SMS-driven automation, making it ideal for logistics, marketing and retail businesses looking to streamline processes.

  Digital engagement and process automation specialist Parker Software will be exhibiting at The Future of Government ICT summit and exhibition on January 29th, 2016 from 9-4pm from stand 22 at the AJ Bell Stadium in Manchester.

  Channel 4 hit a home run with its 2015 series Humans, hailing it as its most successful drama in 20 years, with the first episode alone being viewed by 6.1m people. Proof that - as much as we love our smartphones - we’re all a bit concerned about the rise of the machines.