People often communicate with auto-answering tools such as conversational agents due to their 24/7 availability and unbiased responses.However,chatbots are normally designed for specific purposes and areas of experien...People often communicate with auto-answering tools such as conversational agents due to their 24/7 availability and unbiased responses.However,chatbots are normally designed for specific purposes and areas of experience and cannot answer questions outside their scope.Chatbots employ Natural Language Understanding(NLU)to infer their responses.There is a need for a chatbot that can learn from inquiries and expand its area of experience with time.This chatbot must be able to build profiles representing intended topics in a similar way to the human brain for fast retrieval.This study proposes a methodology to enhance a chatbot’s brain functionality by clustering available knowledge bases on sets of related themes and building representative profiles.We used a COVID-19 information dataset to evaluate the proposed methodology.The pandemic has been accompanied by an“infodemic”of fake news.The chatbot was evaluated by a medical doctor and a public trial of 308 real users.Evaluationswere obtained and statistically analyzed tomeasure effectiveness,efficiency,and satisfaction as described by the ISO9214 standard.The proposed COVID-19 chatbot system relieves doctors from answering questions.Chatbots provide an example of the use of technology to handle an infodemic.展开更多
基金The authors extend their appreciation to the Deputyship for Research&Innovation,Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia,for funding this research work(Project Number UB-2-1442).
文摘People often communicate with auto-answering tools such as conversational agents due to their 24/7 availability and unbiased responses.However,chatbots are normally designed for specific purposes and areas of experience and cannot answer questions outside their scope.Chatbots employ Natural Language Understanding(NLU)to infer their responses.There is a need for a chatbot that can learn from inquiries and expand its area of experience with time.This chatbot must be able to build profiles representing intended topics in a similar way to the human brain for fast retrieval.This study proposes a methodology to enhance a chatbot’s brain functionality by clustering available knowledge bases on sets of related themes and building representative profiles.We used a COVID-19 information dataset to evaluate the proposed methodology.The pandemic has been accompanied by an“infodemic”of fake news.The chatbot was evaluated by a medical doctor and a public trial of 308 real users.Evaluationswere obtained and statistically analyzed tomeasure effectiveness,efficiency,and satisfaction as described by the ISO9214 standard.The proposed COVID-19 chatbot system relieves doctors from answering questions.Chatbots provide an example of the use of technology to handle an infodemic.