Chatbot for Covid19

AI chatbot that 'speaks' your native language (currently, Greek). Chat with Covid19 chatbot to get informed/updated about the Covid situation.

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Inspiration

Inspired by the Covid19 pandemic crisis, and the need to fight disinformation and fake news related to this situation.

What it does

Mitigating fake news spreading by providing a reliable source of information, where the public can inform themselves about the Covid situation, in a human-like manner (dialogue/chat), via commonly used technology (mobile devices) and apps (Facebook/Messenger and Viber).

How we built it

Our pilot chatbot was build using one of the top 5 chatbot platforms, namely Snatchbot (https://snatchbot.me/). We have based the design and content on a Snatchbot template for Covid19. The chatbot speaks and understands your language ( current pilot implementation integrates only Greek). Uses simple Artificial Intelligence algorithms (Natural language processing and Machine learning). It is available via Messenger and Viber channels.

Challenges we ran into

  • Automated switch of/to multilingual content, based on user preference or location
  • Text-to-speech engines in different languages and voices (male, female)
  • NLP and Machine Learning models in different languages

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The pilot/proof-of-concept Covid19 chatbot is already up and running via two channels (FB, Viber), being able to ‘speak’ our native language (Greek).

FB: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Chatbot4Covid19GR/ Viber: viber://pa?chatURI=covid19botuoa and https://viber.com/covid19botuoa

What we learned

  1. Chatbots performance is pretty much determined by physical language restrictions/limitations.

  2. A formal-to-physical (and vice-versa) language approach integrated in chatbots could overcome language barriers/limitations.

  3. Content/information volume is another barrier/limitation to overcome when freely discussing with a chatbot (chatbots know only what they have been ‘told’ for a specific domain)

  4. Knowledge Graphs and Linked Open Data (LOD) may be a good candidate for supporting (2) and (3) i.e., a) formal-to-physical (and vice-versa) language translation, b) bots search the ‘unknown’ answers to the LOD cloud

What's next for Chatbot for Covid19

Work on language and content barriers/limitations of AI chatbots, as described above.

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