Facebook’s bots are already revolting

I am delighted to sell you flowers. Please use this Messenger window to tell me where to deliver them. (credit: Caprica)

Facebook has become a social network for cyborgs. It happened yesterday at Facebook developer conference F8 while everyone was busy eye-rolling over Mark Zuckerberg's keynote about saving the world. The company has launched a bot revolution, and ironically (or not), these bots will eventually replace tech workers in the exact emerging markets that Zuck vowed to rescue with his largesse.

The core of Facebook's idea is to chase its ever-expanding audience, which is flocking to Messenger. Last year, Messenger was the fastest growing app in the US, and now it has almost a billion users. Though Facebook itself claims 1.59 billion monthly active users, it's obvious that Messenger has grown massively since becoming a standalone app in 2014. So Facebook is turning Messenger into a platform with open APIs. And just as developers once built apps on top of Facebook, they'll now build bots on top of Messenger.

What does that mean? Facebook obviously doesn't have the answer yet—that's why they're inviting developers to figure it out for them. That said, there are a few hints of the bot ecosystem to come. In its announcement of the Messenger Platform, the company explains:

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