Bitwala has created a virtual assistant called Lola that helps people go around Bitcoin.
Lola has been given the shape of a French bulldog and the title of “Chief Happiness Officer.” Users will be able to ask Lola general questions on Bitcoin like; what is the price of Bitcoin, who invented Bitcoin or even ask cheeky questions to Lola about herself.
Why create Lola?
One of the gravest problems that Bitcoin and indeed other cryptocurrencies face is the lack of public awareness. People either perceive Bitcoin to be unsafe, a gamble or completely are unwilling to use something that they know little about. It is indeed human nature to be scared of the unknown. It is also true that the typical Bitcoin enthusiast is more likely to be preaching to the choir and is unlikely to reach out to the wider non-tech savvy public. What if there was a way for technology to come to the rescue of ‘normal’ people who want to know more about Bitcoin?
Bitwala created Lola as a fun project for the entire Bitcoin community. In a way she can do what Siri does for Apple. Andrea Hesler, Online Marketing Manager for Bitwala, explains:
“Our goal is to make Lolabot able to provide every Bitcoin-related question that gets thrown at her with intelligence, accuracy and sass.”
She tells us how the idea was born:
“We entered the Bitcoin community back in 2011, and ever since then, we have been focused on educating the benefits of Bitcoin along with the ease and convenience of using Bitwala. We have a lot of new Bitcoin users coming up to us who are excited about using Bitwala but don’t really know a lot about Bitcoin. So, Lolabot was created with the idea of making learning about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general much easier and much more fun.”
Lola learns the tricks
The more questions people ask Lola about Bitcoin, the better she is going to be in the future and more relevant. We were told by Bitwala that they are training Lolabot to better understand the questions that are given to her.
As Andrea puts it, “Just like the real-life Lola who gets to learn new tricks introduced and taught to her, the Lolabot gets smarter and gives better quality answers with the more questions submitted. Lolabot is a work in progress, but definitely a fun one!”
Lola may answer every Bitcoin question
Forget about those tiring lectures on cryptocurrency and the boring whitepapers that technerds tend to churn out by the hour.
Something like Lola has the potential to finally put out the answers about Bitcoin to the wider world in a format that they are familiar with and willing to consume. The true potential of projects like Lola is education and this particular little French dog can be the key to reaching out to the wider world.
Lolabot is using technologies like artificial intelligence and natural language processing as well as voice recognition. In the test that I gave it, the bot was able to understand my questions and respond quite intelligently despite my Indian accent. This is a project that will add a fun dimension to Bitcoin but it will also be able to give information on Bitwala’s own products and services.
As Andrea Hesler says,
“With more and more new questions asked, it gets more familiar with keywords asked. Lolabot can then provide more intelligent and accurate answers to more product-specific questions.”
Why don’t you give Lolabot a try?