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Coronabot: A Conversational AI System for Tackling Misinformation

Authors:

Weronika Sieińska,

Daniel Hernandez Garcia,

Christian Dondrup,

Oliver LemonAuthors Info & Claims

GoodIT '21: Proceedings of the Conference on Information Technology for Social Good

Pages 265 - 270

https://doi.org/10.1145/3462203.3475874

Published: 09 September 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Covid-19 has brought with it an onslaught of information for the public, some true and some false, across virtually every platform. For an individual, the task of sifting through the deluge for reliable, accurate facts is significant and potentially off-putting. This matters since fundamentally, containment of the pandemic relies on individuals' compliance with public health measures and their understanding of the need for them, and any barrier to this, including misinformation, can have profoundly negative effects. In this paper we present a conversational AI system which tackles misinformation using a two-pronged approach: firstly, by giving users easy, Natural Language access via speech or text to concise, reliable information synthesised from multiple authoritative sources; and secondly, by directly rebutting commonly circulated myths surrounding coronavirus. The initial system is targeted at staff and students of a University, but has the potential for wide applicability. In tests of the system's Natural Language Understanding (NLU) we achieve an F1-score of 0.906. We also discuss current research challenges in the area of conversational Natural Language interfaces for health information.

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Cited By

Naeem JGul OParlak IKarpouzis KSalman YKadry S(2024)Detection of Misinformation Related to Pandemic Diseases using Machine Learning Techniques in Social Media PlatformsEAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology10.4108/eetpht.10.645910Online publication date: 28-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.4108/eetpht.10.6459
Tseng YJarupreechachan WLee T(2023)Understanding the Benefits and Design of Chatbots to Meet the Healthcare Needs of Migrant WorkersProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36101067:CSCW2(1-34)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610106
Lim GPerrault S(2023)Fact Checking Chatbot: A Misinformation Intervention for Instant Messaging Apps and an Analysis of Trust in the Fact CheckersMobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_11(197-224)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_11

Index Terms

Coronabot: A Conversational AI System for Tackling Misinformation
1. Applied computing
  1. Life and medical sciences
    1. Health care information systems
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction paradigms
      1. Natural language interfaces

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cover image ACM Conferences

GoodIT '21: Proceedings of the Conference on Information Technology for Social Good

September 2021

345 pages

ISBN:9781450384780

DOI:10.1145/3462203

Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 09 September 2021

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European Commission

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GoodIT '21

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GoodIT '21: Conference on Information Technology for Social Good

September 9 - 11, 2021

Roma, Italy

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Cited By

Naeem JGul OParlak IKarpouzis KSalman YKadry S(2024)Detection of Misinformation Related to Pandemic Diseases using Machine Learning Techniques in Social Media PlatformsEAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology10.4108/eetpht.10.645910Online publication date: 28-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.4108/eetpht.10.6459
Tseng YJarupreechachan WLee T(2023)Understanding the Benefits and Design of Chatbots to Meet the Healthcare Needs of Migrant WorkersProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36101067:CSCW2(1-34)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610106
Lim GPerrault S(2023)Fact Checking Chatbot: A Misinformation Intervention for Instant Messaging Apps and an Analysis of Trust in the Fact CheckersMobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_11(197-224)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_11

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