How to Build a Chatbot Using Amazon Lex, Lambda and the Python Requests Library

In this video, I show you you how to create a serverless chatbot using Lex Lambda and the Python requests libraru.

We will build a conversational experience.
Just like Siri, Google and Alexa can tell you joke or tell you a random fact, our bot will be able to do the same

What is Lex

Amazon Lex is a service for building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text. Amazon Lex provides the advanced deep learning functionalities of automatic speech recognition (ASR) for converting speech to text, and natural language understanding (NLU) to recognize the intent of the text, to enable you to build applications with highly engaging user experiences and lifelike conversational interactions.

Documentation Link
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lexv2/latest/dg/what-is.html

What is Lambda

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. (FaaS)

Documentation Link
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/welcome.html

What is Python
Python is an interpreted high-level general-purpose programming language. Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant indentation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)

Lex is regional service. For details about regions supported, API endpoints etc. see the
Lex Reference Guide
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#lex_region


How to Give Lambda function access to the internet
https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/internet-access-lambda-function/

How to create Lambda Layers
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-layers.html

Do you think it is a good idea to store URLs inside your Lambda functions? Consider using
Environment Variable
Secrets Manager
Systems Manager Parameter Store
Do you think it is a good idea to use a single Lambda function for everything? Split the jokes and factoid functions into separate Lambda functions.
Why would I now want to import the entire requests library? Only use the get function instead of doing a blanket import to save on cost.
Can you integrate a LOB system API call into your Lambda function? For example, design a bot that can give the user a status of their case. The bot asks the user for a case number (slot) and sends the information to Lambda and Lambda makes an API call to CRM system (Dynamics or Salesforce) and gets the case status

Git Repo for code
https://github.com/fakhtar/JokesandFactsLexVideo

Creating and using Lambda Layers
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-layers.html