back to article Sysadmin chatbots: We have the technology

Chatbots are flashing up in our future view as something that could improve an admin's lot. Instead of using a GUI with nested and drill-down screen forms to do their job, they'll have a new form of Command Line Interface, only this will be a Chat Line Interface to a chatbot. Array vendor Tintri is showing how this could be …

  1. Brian Miller

    Command line of a different font

    This really isn't impressive. It's just some limited parsing, like what you get with Gherkin, which is what Cucumber uses for running tests. It's a command line of a different font.

    There are plenty of projects for this sort of thing. It's nothing revolutionary, and hardly evolutionary. Somebody has gone and stuck it in a chatbox interface, so now some wag might call it AI. Just like Nadella is doing right now.

    Just because a CLI gets dressed up with speech recognition, etc., doesn't mean that it isn't a CLI. Commands get processed, states get saved, blah blah blah, it's all been done before. You don't need "deep data mining" for a script to grep some logs and run through some branches. Sure, it can be called that, but that's not really what it is, is it?

    I would rather have a CLI and good GUI status than have to have a talk with Alexis or whatever other silly "AI" that's been propped up.

    1. Rafael 1
      Trollface

      Re: This really isn't impressive. It's just some limited parsing

      How do you feel about "this really isn't impressive"?

      I see.

      Tell me more about parsing.

      What does that suggest to you?

      etc.

  2. MondoMan

    That T3500 warning sounds suspiciously similar to a warning about impending failure of an AE-35 unit :)

    1. Gio Ciampa

      I was thinking more Terminator...

  3. The Original Steve

    Bollocks

    Seriously, some people have far too much free time on their hands.

    If you have the automation and orchestration layers as needed for this to work, then all of the examples could be one using bugger all commands anyway.

    Plus a degree of complexity in administering complex systems is a good thing - helps to keep the idiots that only know how to do something, rather than the pro who knows how something works, out.

  4. Anonymous C0ward

    So if I walk through the door and yell DROP DATABASE USERS what happens?

    1. thomn8r

      Is that you, Bobby Tables?

      https://xkcd.com/327/

  5. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    BOFH

    So it's goodbye BOFH?

    I can't wait to see Simon's take on this...

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: BOFH

      "I can't wait to see Simon's take on this"

      Whatever it might be I doubt the AI would survive until pub o'clock.

    2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      Re: BOFH

      OK, you got there first.

      Will we see a BOFH on Friday? We're overdue for one (or three)

    3. Adrian 4

      Re: BOFH

      Clickety-click.

      What AI ?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks to me just like playing Zork...

    ... just I did it on a 6502 with 64k or RAM...

    Surely some more "clever" parsing could make CLI more "friendly", without the need to memorize lots of switches, but I wouldn't call it AI.

    It will be an AI when I could ask "why MySQL is slow?" and it will give a meaningful answer...

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Looks to me just like playing Zork...

      "It will be an AI when I could ask "why MySQL is slow?" and it will give a meaningful answer..."

      It will be AI when it can work out whether you meant "MySQL" or "my SQL".

  7. Andrew Jones 2

    So you can have a conversation with your mate along these lines:

    "Oh I see you have one of those Amazon Echo's - how useful do you find it? Is it not a security risk? What would happen for example if I said 'Alexa, delete all virtual machines' ..... Oh I'm so sorry - I didn't realise it would do it without asking for confirmation"

  8. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
    Happy

    Not yet?

    "Hello, IT"

    <pause>

    "Yes, I see. Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

    <pause>

    "Good. Bye."

  9. Disk0
    Pint

    I, for one,

    Welcome our new robotic PFY's. More pints for me!

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