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Paradoxically, some humans find it easier to confide in an autonomous sys-
tem without human characteristics – such as gathering witness statements and
therapy bots. If humans already tend to assess and manage their level of open-
ness with human coaches, is that very different to maintaining an awareness of
a chatbot? The point is that chatbots, in any form, will need to give us the right
level of visual clues to build our trust.
Having a coaching conversation
Let us get back to creating a coaching chatbot. The primary mode of communi-
cation of a chatbot is conversation (text or voice-based). There are three dimen-
sions of a conversation that must be considered (Britz, 2016):
Ȥ closed vs open
Ȥ short vs long
Ȥ retrieval-based vs generative-based.
Open conversation refers to a large array of topics and contexts with the abil-
ity to switch context rapidly, e. g. from talking about the weather to switching
to a discussion on climate change, whereas closed conversations are limited to
a specific domain with limited complexity, e. g. ordering a pizza or asking for
help on selecting a mortgage bond. Conversation duration refers to the amount
of time a chatbot is able to hold a meaningful conversation. A chatbot that pro-
vides very specific information probably needs a conversation duration of one
minute or two, whereas a more open-ended conversation could last several min-
utes or longer. Lastly, rule-based chatbots that use pre-defined scripts (retrieval-
based) literally retrieve the next sentence from a finite list of options. A gen-
erative-based chatbot uses machine learning to generate conversations on the
fly, based on what it deems appropriate for the context. At this point, we move
closer to the concept of virtual humans and sentient beings.
One could, therefore, classify chatbots into two opposite camps: simple chat-
bots (closed, short, retrieval-based) and complex chatbots (open, long, gener-
ative-based). A quick look at some of the existing coaching chatbots such as
Wysa, Youper, Woebot and Vicci reveal that they fall into the simple category
of chatbots. Responses and questions are often repeated (retrieval-based) and
the scope of conversation is limited (closed, short). At the complex end of the
spectrum, the humanoid robot Sophia and the interviewing chatbot Intervyo are
more self-aware, self-motivated and have an inner narrative (Burden & Savin-
Baden, 2019). Coaching chatbots are not advanced enough as yet.
Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 4.0
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book Coaching im digitalen Wandel"
Coaching im digitalen Wandel
- Title
- Coaching im digitalen Wandel
- Editor
- Robert Wegener
- Silvano Ackermann
- Jeremias Amstutz
- Silvia Deplazes
- Hansjörg Künzli
- Annamarie Ryter
- Publisher
- Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- German, English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-666-40742-0
- Size
- 15.5 x 23.2 cm
- Pages
- 166
- Category
- Technik