[GFischer]

Well, one BIG difference with command line interfaces is that there's logic behind ("NLP") that guesses what the user wanted to do and matches it with the correct command (matching an input with an intent).

Heck, that's basically most of the value the bot frameworks I've tested provide (speech to text, some UI creation and a bit of domain framework being the rest).

And it's not a small amount of value, we currently have an SMS-based menu system, and people complain that autocorrect changes what they wanted to type in, that it doesn't recognize typos, etc. Only programmers and power users are comfortable with the rigidity of a command line.

I'd say that a well-designed chatbot IS better than a command-line interface because it combines the power of command line (combining commands) with not having to learn and master the commands (and being lenient towards typos and missing parameters and stuff like that).

I'm not a fan of chatbots (even though I work with them) but I do think there's a valid use case when public needs non-frequent interactions with a system (ie help desk or customer support or nonfrequent purchases), and they definitely always need a way to access a real person.