A I And AMTK

Today's Times has an interesting article regarding how Artificial Intelligence is being used in the Travel industry:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/busin ... ssist.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fair Use:

Robots are also being used at select Starwood, InterContinental and Marriott hotels in the United States and are being tested in Europe by SNCF, the French railway, and on cruise ships operated by Costa and Aida.

Hopefully our IT professionals around here will choose to discuss; "the rest of us" should rightly defer to their knowledge.

I looked through the article and think... geesh, what a puff piece and a load of fark.

Here's the deal. We already have the ability to book airline flights with great efficiency, even taking into account a user's location (with current web browser technology). With well documented interfaces and a small bit of code to glue it all together, yes, the travel agency will go the way of the 20th Century Limited.

That said, "artificial intelligence" here isn't a matter of high levels of intelligence or replicating a human being. In this use case, it's overkill. What we are looking for is a much better (if humanoid) user interface (or UI) to book our train tickets. That is what is being experimented on in hotels and some airline/train companies -- a humanoid-to-human interface, because the graphical user interface we have now is rather utilitarian.

Of course, it'll help if it has a bit of AI in it to do a bit of banter, which can help in steering towards a more relaxing ride or detect if the user needs to have some human check on him/her/insert-pronoun-of-choice-here. But it'll be the first in-line filter to the information folks are telling it, condensing a long winding story into a trip from San Jose to New York City via Chicago and back. A version 2.0 will book the trip with sleepers, a few days in Chicago for a concert or two, added insurance, hotel booking, and complementary laundry service.

Heh... can't wait for that. And here I am thinking "Wait, AI driving the trains?!? What's next, Thomas working for Amtrak?"

STrRedWolf wrote:With well documented interfaces and a small bit of code to glue it all together, yes, the travel agency will go the way of the 20th Century Limited.

What's a travel agency?

I'm not be sarcastic here. The last few vacations I've done have been booked almost entirely through google searches. We're not talking the simple trip to Disney here, we're talking multi city, multi country trips with various travel options in the mix.

It takes maybe an hour or two and some thought. Why the heck would I drive out to somewhere and pay someone to do that, when I can do it from home for free, and get more or less the same prices?

Thank you Mr. Red Wolf, for being first to respond, as your profile notes IT experience.

I honestly thought The Times was "scraping for a story" to fill their business travel feature. Since my "IT" in this life is limited to booting up the Dell with W10 , and hope no error messages pop up, and there was reference to the SNCF, which probably handles more passengers than all US passenger railroads combined, I thought I'd bring it to the Forum's attention.

Finally Mr. Nas; travel agencies are alive and well at least in Greenwich CT. My Sister uses one for her travels; she simply "can't be bothered".

DISCLAIMER: I'm a software engineer working on Big Data (TM) projects.

The connection between AI/machine learning and travel is well established, perhaps largely because travel is one of the clearest applications of graph theory (that the two most famous problems in graph theory are/were proving the Four Color Map Theorem and the Traveling Salesman Problem is telling). Years ago, Google bought a company in Cambridge called ITA Software (which made, among other things the software which powers Orbitz), and it wasn't really because Google wanted to be in the travel software market, but because it was the easiest way to hire a few hundred engineers who are really good at AI/ML.

Nasadowsk wrote:

STrRedWolf wrote:With well documented interfaces and a small bit of code to glue it all together, yes, the travel agency will go the way of the 20th Century Limited.

What's a travel agency?

I'm not be sarcastic here. The last few vacations I've done have been booked almost entirely through google searches. We're not talking the simple trip to Disney here, we're talking multi city, multi country trips with various travel options in the mix.

It takes maybe an hour or two and some thought. Why the heck would I drive out to somewhere and pay someone to do that, when I can do it from home for free, and get more or less the same prices?

I think you're being sarcastic, unless perhaps you live in Podunkville, ND? I googled "travel agencies in Boston" and a good dozen came up. Brownsville, TX, a city of about 180,000 citizens yields a list of 5. I do agree that in the next five years, those lists are going to be shorter, but I feel there will always be some that would like to have others do the planning.

They are mainly food for exotic trips like crossing mountains, going in exotic places and getting access to non standard trips.

Yeah, I was going to say, I know of one travel agent; she specializes in these giant grand iteneraries; not the stuff from yesteryear where you could get a package for a flight on TWA, a rental car, and a good hotel for the family to Florida for the winter...

Agent--

Mr.Google returns three travel agencies in Greenwich CT where my Sister resides. When she goes somewhere, she could care less what airline, what aircraft, just time defined as,say, mid morning and her asile seat, for unlike her brother, she could care less about flightseeing.

She also confirms that she'd like a mid level hotel and if she needs a car at destination or a livery to HPN or LGA. Over and done in five minutes save "pleasantries" with the agent.

In a few hours she gets a phone and email confirmation of the junket. For that she pays a "fee for service", and gives it no further thought.

In upscale markets, I think travel agencies will continue to be around.

No doubt, there is still a demand, but they are not the source of deals; the internet has replaced that most...I remember back in the day, the wall-to-wall ads for vacation packages in Florida, California, Hawaii and Las Vegas.

However, I still use the AAA Travel Desk time to time when I want to get the best rate with my AAA discount....

Artificial Intelligence, well I could see the use of such actually being done to reduce train crews and specifically to automate functions that engineers once performed. It's not too far fetched that automated systems will eventually drive the trains of the future, although there will be a human in the cab in event of failure and for the few functions that an A.I. can't do. A.I. doesn't need an hours of service rule, it runs continuously ( that downtime is money in an industry where every second counts and delays can be costly to all parties involved ).