Chatbots’ greetings to human-computer communication

In the last years, chatbots have gained new attention, due to the interest showed by widely known personalities and companies. The concept is broad, and, in this paper we target the work developed by the (old) community that is typically associated with chatbot’s competitions. In our opinion, they contribute with very interesting know-how, but specially with large-scale corpora, gathered by interactions with real people, an invaluable resource considering the renewed interest in Deep Nets.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chatbots — an organisation’s friend or foe?

In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence has increased tremendously and the hospitality industry has not gone unaffected. Nowadays, chatbots, which simulate human conversations, are almost indispensable in the customer service branch of hospitality. Where organisations started rapidly with the introduction of this new technology, they are now raising the question of whether or not this technological evolution is a good development for this industry. On the one hand, chatbots improve and accelerate customer service, saving time and labour costs. On the other hand, there are privacy and security concerns, lack of personality and lack of research resulting in errors and financial expenses. Presently, chatbots are seen as a technology to support human service, but due to rapid development this situation is open to change.Keywords: artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, hospitality industry, human resource management (HRM

Deep Learning for Chatbots

Natural Language Processing (NLP) requires modelling complex relationships between the semantics of the language. While traditional machine learning techniques are used for NLP, the models built for conversations, called chatbots, are unable to be truly generic. While chatbots have been made with traditional machine learning techniques, deep learning has allowed the complexities within NLP to be easier to model and can be leveraged to build a chatbot which has a real conversation with a human. In this project, we explore the problems and techniques used to build chatbots and where improvements can be made. We analyze different architectures to build chatbots and propose a hybrid model, partly retrieval-based and partly generation-based which gives the best results

Designing brand chatbots: The impact of chatbot’s personality on the user’s brand personality perception

Along with advancements in technologies, which include machine learning and artificial intelligence, chatbots are increasingly taking the place of employees that work as customer service agents and personal shoppers. Considering that the characteristics of employees can influence a consumer’s perception of brand personality (Aaker, 1997), this perception may also be affected by the chatbot’s personality. This paper aims to investigate the impact of a chatbot’s personality on a user’s perception of brand personality. Two brands, and their chatbots, are used as case studies. The empirical study comprises of two stages, in which the qualitative and the quantitative data are both gathered and analyzed. Firstly, an online survey was conducted to investigate the personalities of two existing brands and their respective chatbots. As a result, a gap in personality between one of the brands and its chatbot was identified. Next, two prototypes were built and then tested in the interview. One was the emulator of the current brand chatbot, and the other was a new chatbot designed to have a personality closer to the brand personality. The findings reveal that the chatbot’s personality may affect brand personality, even though the impact was smaller than expected because participants perceived that the two prototypes’ personalities were moderately close to the brand personality. Interestingly, interviewees revealed that the chatbot’s personality may have a greater influence if it is totally different from the brand personality. Based on the study findings, design considerations are suggested to help practitioners in designing brand chatbots

Construction of ETSEIB's website Chatbot with IBM Watson Assistant

Aquest projecte tracta sobre la creació d’un assistent virtual (xatbot) per la web de l‟Escola Tècnica Superior d‟Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) amb el programa Watson Assistant. Els principals objectius d'aquest treball són disminuir la càrrega de treball de les persones encarregades de respondre les preguntes dels usuaris i millorar l'experiència de la pàgina web. En aquest treball consta un apartat teòric, on s'explica la definició i l'estat de l'art dels chatbots, així com diferents suports per crear-los. A continuació, s'explica més a fons el funcionament de IBM Watson Assistant, que és l'eina utilitzada per crear el xatbot. Després de presentar l'eina, s'explica la metodologia emprada en la ideació i la construcció d'aquest. Durant el capítol de la metodologia es fa un paral·lelisme entre com es desenvoluparia el producte per un equip d'IBM i com ho he desenvolupat jo com a particular. Finalment s'exposa el xatbot a experimentació i se n'extreuen conclusions. Es pot concloure que és una bona manera de donar resposta a preguntes freqüents que entrin dins de l'abast, disminuiria el treball mecànic de resolució de dubtes que hi ha actualment de forma manual i ajuda en la navegació de la pàgina webEste proyecto trata sobre la creación de un asistente virtual (chatbot) para la web de la Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) con el programa Watson Assistant. Los objetivos principales de este trabajo son disminuir la carga de trabajo de las personas encargadas de responder las preguntas de los usuarios y mejorar la experiencia de la página web. En este trabajo consta un apartado teórico, donde se explica la definición y el estado del arte de los chatbots, así como diferentes soportes para la creación de estos. A continuación, se explica más a fondo el funcionamiento de IBM Watson Assistant, que es la herramienta utilizada para crear el chatbot. Después de presentar la herramienta, se explica la metodología emprada en la ideación y construcción de este. Durante el capítulo de la metodología se hace un paralelismo entre cómo se desarrollaría el producto por un equipo de IBM y como lo he desarrollado yo como particular. Finalmente se expone el chatbot a experimentación y se extraen conclusiones. Se puede concluir que es una buena manera de dar respuesta a preguntas frecuentes que entren dentro del alcance, disminuiría el trabajo mecánico de resolución de dudas que existe actualmente de forma manual y ayuda en la navegación de la página webThis project deals with the creation of a virtual assistant (chatbot) for Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) website with the Watson Assistant program. The main objectives of this work are to reduce the workload of the people in charge of answering user questions and to improve the experience of the website. In this work there is a theoretical section, where the definition and the state of the art of chatbots are explained, as well as different supports for their creation. Next, the operation of IBM Watson Assistant, which is the tool used to create the chatbot, is explained in more depth. After presenting the tool, the methodology used in its ideation and construction is explained. During the methodology chapter, a parallelism is made between how would the product be developed by an IBM team and how I have developed it as an individual. Finally, the chatbot is exposed to experimentation and conclusions are drawn. It can be concluded that it is a good way to answer frequently asked questions that fall within the scope of the chatbot, it would reduce the mechanical and repetitive work of resolving questions manually and it would help to navigate the web pag

Conception and Realization of a Chatbot-System to support Psychological and Medical Procedures

As a result of long term researches of Artificial Intelligent, the influence as well as the amount of possible use-cases of chatbots is growing constantly. As to health care, chatbots can be used to simplify the interaction between experts and patients. For example, chatbots can help people who are affected by depression, as the barrier to chat with an application is less high than meeting a real person. While time flexibility can be a benefit for patients, the response to frequently asked questions relieves experts so they can focus on important issues. Consequently, the usage of chatbots in psychological and medical sectors can be a step to improve the health care system. The objective of this master’s thesis is to create a system concept involving a conversational agent, a mobile application and a back-end application to built solutions for the psychological and medical sectors. As all possible use-cases can not be clearly restricted, the concept is designed to be adjustable. Referring to health care, the systems needs to be able to react to critical situations like medical emergencies. However, handling life-threatening cases exceeds the capability of the system and always needs human assistance. Therefore, the concept also includes human participants such as experts. To test the approach, a mobile application was developed that includes a simple conversation using the AI assistant IBM Watson Assistant. In addition, a generic framework was developed to handle multiple third-party chatbots. Furthermore, the mobile application reacts to critical situations, such as the detection of suicidal thoughts or if the user enters an input that is unknown for the system. Moreover, the knowledge base of the chatbot can be extended using a conversation formatted process

Aplicación para crear chatbots y asistentes virtuales inteligentes

Máster Universitario en Ingeniería InformáticaUn chatbot es un programa informático capaz de comunicarse con una persona a través de un chat mediante el uso de lenguaje natural. Aunque los chatbots llevan existiendo casi desde los inicios de la computación, actualmente están generando mucho interés. Esto se debe a que la potencia de cómputo actual nos ha permitido aplicar algoritmos de aprendizaje automático y procesamiento de lenguaje natural más complejos y utilizar cantidades mayores de datos para generar mejores modelos. De esta forma obtenemos cada vez resultados más precisos en el entendimiento del lenguaje humano por parte de las máquinas. Estos avances tecnológicos han provocado que más empresas u organizaciones se interesen y entren en el mercado de los chatbots, y ofrezcan servicios o aplicaciones para crearte el tuyo propio. En este trabajo se desarrolla una aplicación que también permite crear chatbots usando NLU (entendimiento del lenguaje natural) y un gestor de diálogo de estados finito que funciona con reglas. Una de las ventajas que ofrece esta aplicación es la posibilidad de crear chatbots multi-idioma

Chatbots/conversational interfaces in the context of the stereotype content model (SCM)

Virtual assistants in the form of chatbots are taking over today’s technology industry. Companies have increasingly started integrating conversational agents into their customer support platforms and recorded millions of interactions. However, this technology has a high failure rate when it comes to correctly processing inquires. How can firms enhance a client’s experience with their chatbot, aside from improving the technology that powers these bots? The stereotype content model (SCM) theory postulates that people judge each other based on two dimensions: Warmth and competence. A person seen as highly warm and competent is admired and these two traits have a positive effect on trust. In practice, Casciaro and Sousa-Lobo developed archetypes based on the likability and competence dimensions. The “lovable star” is likeable and competent and thus great in demand. The “incompetent jerk” on the other hand lacks expertise and is seen as cold, therefore vastly avoided

Bots: tipología y aplicaciones en el ámbito empresarial

Los términos bot y chatbot no son nuevos, sin embargo, suelen ser desconocidos por la mayoría de personas que no están relacionadas de forma directa con ellos. A pesar de que su origen se remonta a hace más de cincuenta años, hoy en día, son un tema de vanguardia gracias a los avances en inteligencia artificial y procesamiento del lenguaje natural y a las ventajas derivadas de su aplicación en las actividades de la empresa. Con este Trabajo Fin de Grado se pretende conseguir que el lector se familiarice con los términos anteriormente citados, descubra los diferentes tipos de bots y conozca los beneficios que proporciona el uso de los bots en el ámbito empresarial.Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Marketing e Investigación de Mercado