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What are we to make of the announcement (tinyurl.com/yc722vsm) that HMRC is suspending most of its webchat services? My experience of webchats in general is mixed. Sometimes I have found them a very useful way of obtaining information – not least because I can get on with something else while the answer is being found and I can print a record of the conversation as evidence. But at other times I have found myself tearing out what little hair I have left as the webchat fails to understand the most basic questions and I have to rephrase things repeatedly until I obtain a sensible response.
The more we understand about how artificial intelligence works, the more it becomes clear how difficult it is to devise expert systems that are responsive enough to cope with different ways of asking what is in essence the same question. Terminology gets in the way. The word ‘receipts’ can mean items of income but it can also mean evidence of expenditure. In conversation the context will normally make it clear what is intended, but a machine may not always have that level of understanding.
None of this is to suggest that there is no future for webchat-type services with HMRC – I’m sure they will have a role. But perhaps HMRC was over-optimistic about what could be achieved. A scaled back, but more effective, webchat service, rather than one which tries to cover too much ground could well be the answer. It is salutary to remind ourselves that a leading artificial intelligence pioneer predicted in 1965 that ‘machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do’. Sometimes it seems that point will always be 20 years away.
