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Title
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Chatbots and health : general
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Author
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Abstract
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| People increasingly use digital technologies for health communication. One particularly promising technology is offered by so-called “digital conversational agents,” sometimes also referred to as “embodied conversational agents” (when they have a virtual body or face), “virtual humans,” or “conversational interfaces.” When the communication is primarily based on language and takes place through the exchange of written (or spoken) messages via messaging applications, websites, or apps on a smartphone, the term “chatbot” is often used, and this is also the umbrella term we use in this entry. Chatbots rely on artificial intelligence (AI) methods and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to interpret speech and/or text input from a human user, and to produce adequate responses to that input. For health communication, chatbots hold several presumed advantages. However, despite their increasing popularity, the current generation has several key limitations. As a result, the promise of chatbots to act as human-like conversation partners for health communication purposes has not yet materialized. Recent developments in AI and NLP suggest that this may be possible in the near future. In this entry we survey how a chatbot can be built and evaluated. We also highlight a number of broad challenges for chatbot deployment related to ethics, privacy, and other issues, which we frame in five broad recommendations for chatbot use in health communication. |
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Language
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English
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Source (book)
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The international encyclopedia of health communication / Ho, E.Y. [edit.]; et al.
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Source (series)
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The Wiley Blackwell-ICA international encyclopedias of communication
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Publication
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Wiley Blackwell
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2022
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ISBN
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978-0-470-67395-9
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DOI
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10.1002/9781119678816.IEHC0724
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Volume/pages
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9 p.
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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