I spoke about conversation design ethics on the Conversational AI show.

​

One of the most beautiful things about language, and often times also the most infuriating, is that there is more than one way to say what we want to convey. This leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. 

​

As a conversation designer, I believe it is my responsibility to be thoughtful and inclusive in the dialogues I create. Ethical conversation design starts from the moment a user says "Hello." 

 

And since identity is encoded in the language we speak, one of the things I'm always thinking about is, how would you make a user feel included in as few words and characters as possible?

​

For when a user says "What up?" or "Hiya" I have found that the best response for a bot is to say "Hi, what can I do for you?"

​

There's no need to draw attention to the fact that the user greeted the bot in a way that's different. I wouldn't do this interacting with another person and normal conversation moves forward from "hello" pretty quickly. 

​

Any other response, other than "hello", could leave a negative impression on the user.

 

​

​

​