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Re:Facebook’s Virtual Assistant M Is Dead by michaelt on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @03:56PM (#16119015)
The real difference is human assistants are paid well to act as their principal's agent. If a PA had a choice buying a nice bunch of flowers or a weedy bunch with a $5 kickback, they'd be dumb to take the kickback and risk their job.

But if I ask Facebook/Google/Amazon to order some flowers for me, why _wouldn't_ they monetise it? Gotta pay for those tens of thousands of engineers somehow.

Re:Facebook’s Virtual Assistant M Is Dead by achamayou on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @04:48PM (#16119431)
Because you won't be doing it again if they mess it up?
Re:Facebook’s Virtual Assistant M Is Dead by dwaltrip on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @07:35PM (#16120471)
Ideally. It's possible that the Google business machine might not do a superb job collecting and synthesizing the vast number of these very fine-tuned details and pieces of feedback, at least at this early stage.

This is something a good personal assistant can do easily.

Though eventually AI will gain those capabilities, one way or another.