This week we have gone over to the dark side and introduce our very own, custom-built Flat Chat Chatbot – or Flat ChatBot, to save a few letters.

Why? It seems strata managers, building managers and strata committees are encountering an increasing number of residents who are challenging their advice and information by quoting an AI source.

You can see the appeal. No more waiting for someone to get back to you (if they ever do). Even the Flat Chat Forum can be almost instantaneous but can also take a couple of hours to respond.

With AI chatbots you type in a question and within seconds you get a pretty convincing answer. Convincing, but not necessarily accurate.

One problem is that every state has different strata laws and an answer that may be correct in another city may not be valid in your home town. AI will eventually catch up with that – if it knows to ask which state you’re in.

Another issue is whether people are asking the right questions.  Just today I had a query from a reader who had received an unsatisfactory response from “the strata” about an issue.

What does “the strata” mean?  The strata manager, the strata committee, the strata chair or secretary? This is a suprisingly common issue in strata communications. Eventually, again, AI will work out that it needs to answer that question before it can answer yours.

And there is a third problem.  It’s one thing to be told what the law says, it’s entirely another to be given a recommendation on how to implement it, especially if you don’t want to start a feud with your neighbours or committee.

Now, our experiment two weeks ago, in which we asked AI how to deal with an elderly neighbour who played her TV too loud all day and night, received thoughtful and workable solutions.  But it was conducted on paid-for AI platforms, not the ones you get for free, and I knew exactly how to word the question to get the optimum responses.

So we have decided to bridge the strata knowledge gap by introducing our own Flat ChatBot. It will answer your strata questions by first checking to see if the issue has been covered in Flat Chat, then checking state government information websites, and then checking the internet for any other reliable sources.

It will then provide links to the information it provides, so you can go back to the source. So you will get an instant answer. How good will it be?  These are very, very early days and we need more people to try it, either with real questions or hypotheticals, to see where its flaws are.

Seriously! We want you to find fault with it and then let us know so we can train it to be better.  AI is like a high-powered sports car … it’s only dangerous if you drive it badly otherwise it will get you where you want to go a lot faster.

Please give the Flat Chatbot a try – it’s on this page – then click on this link to tell us how it worked (or didn’t) for you. And then bring your now informed question to the Forum to find out what to do with the information.