As Chatbots Become More Human, They are Playing a Greater Role in Healthcare

Although we have become accustomed to viewing chatbots as something used in customer service or personal assistants like Siri or Alexa, there are a lot more meaningful uses for such AI technology. As we will see later on, chatbots are now being used for a wide variety of purposes within healthcare. Before we get into all of the applications of chatbots, let’s take a look at the technology that allows them to understand human speech. 

Using Audio Annotation to Develop Natural Language Processing 

Natural language processing (NLP) is one of the core technologies that make it possible for humans to converse with machines like chatbots. While there are different ways to train the underlying machine learning algorithms, audio annotation is one of the most common methods used by researchers. This involves taking an audio file and annotating all of the sounds in the recording. A lot of attention to detail is required to perform audio annotation correctly since the machine will need to be able to distinguish between actual words and sounds coming from background noise or even the onomatopoeias used by humans on a daily basis. This means that a human data annotator would have to label every sound in the recording and possibly even break down each sentence into noun and verb clauses and anything else the researchers need to train the model. 

As you can imagine, this is extremely time-consuming work, especially when we consider how much data is needed to create a product like a Siri or Alexa. This is why a lot of companies choose to outsource such tasks to an external service provider. Now that we know how chatbots are able to understand human speech, let’s take a look at some interesting use cases of chatbots. 

Helping Alzheimer’s and Dementia Patients 

Many patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s are struggling with short-term memory loss and this problem only worsens as the disease progresses. A new chatbot developed by Endurance is assisting both doctors and family members to identify deviations in conversational branches that could potentially indicate a problem with immediate recollection. Doctors can also review conversational logs to see if the patient’s condition is getting worse. This is an interesting new challenge for researchers since the chatbot needs to do more than simply understand speech, but also identify any deviations from the normal or usual conversation. Interestingly enough, the project is open-source which means that anyone can contribute to the development of the chatbot and expand the uses of chatbots in healthcare. 

Helping Insomniacs Get Through the Night 

If you’re having difficulties falling asleep at night and looking for alternatives to scrolling through your social media feed at 3 am, then the Insomnobot 3000 may just be what you are looking for. It was developed by Casper Technologies to help people struggling with insomnia to eliminate the feeling of loneliness and all of the doubts and worries that enter your mind as you are having difficulties sleeping. Even though this product is still in its early stages, it is already showing a lot of promise with its tongue-in-cheek humor which makes the conversation delightful even in the early hours of the morning.  

A Chatbot That Diagnoses Patients 

In the era of COVID-19, we are always worried about contracting the virus which is why we are always wondering whether or not we are experiencing any of the symptoms. What is there was a chabot to whom you could describe any of the symptoms you are experiencing and it could provide you with quality medical information. Thanks to MedWhat there now is such a chatbot in the form of a mobile app. It is important to note that you could use this app to get information on many other diseases or conditions. Over time, as you use the chatbot more and more it will become better aware of your medical history and alert you about potential health issues before they snowball into major problems. 

Mindy Support is Assisting the Development of Next-Gen Chatbots 

As we mentioned early on, the amount of data annotation required for creating chatbots that understand all of the nuances of human speech can be massive. Performing data annotation internally is very time-consuming and expensive and your team could make better use of this time to further develop your product. Mindy Support provides comprehensive data annotation needs and can assemble even the most sizable team within a short timeframe. With more than 2,000 employees in six locations all over Ukraine, we will be able to scale your team without sacrificing the quality of the data annotation. 

Posted by Il’ya Dudkin