How COVID19 is driving innovations in Conversational AI

Co-authored by Aimée Reynolds and Tim Bettridge

This is a time of global pandemic. The COVID 19 virus is a novel virus that humans have never been exposed to. As such we have no natural immunity to it and there are no treatments or vaccines available yet. While Scientists are working around the clock to change that, the fact is that this is a highly contagious virus and can be very deadly to certain segments of the population. In an effort to contain the virus and keep it from overwhelming our health care service, people have been urged to self isolate and practice social distancing. The COVID19 virus is sweeping the planet and causing unprecedented changes to our social lives, health care, the economy, and technology. Throughout history, there have always been triggers that have driven technological advances. One of the technologies being driven by the trigger of COVID19 is Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) which encompasses conversational interfaces that include text based chatbots and voice-first interfaces.

The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai has said; “We are now witnessing a new shift in computing: the move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world.” This technology is changing how people use cell phones and computers by shifting from touch to voice user interfaces. In the past several years the tech has gone mainstream, with over 50% of American’s and 40% of Canadians having smart speakers in their homes. Now, during these extraordinary times, we see innovative new uses for touchless voice based and conversational technologies. There are many great uses for conversational AI that can benefit people during this pandemic. We have seen them providing online health advice with chatbots. They can be used as important public information sources, and they can keep us connected through voice and video calling features. It’s even possible to use Conversational AI to help with the loneliness that people may experience when they are forced to remain in isolation.

These are very frightening and uncertain times. We live in a global community and our very connectedness has helped this pandemic spread with alarming rapidity. But technology has ways of keeping us connected even though we are forced to isolate now. Nobody expected life to change so drastically in such a short period of time, however, this pandemic is driving technologies that will help us deal effectively with this new reality.

One thing that has become a point of concern during this pandemic is how easily this virus is transmitted. It has made us even more conscious of personal hygiene and measures we can take to prevent the spread. We all know the importance of hand-washing and the effectiveness of hand sanitizers. And we have all suddenly become aware of just how difficult it is to stop touching our faces! One disturbing fact we have learned more about is just how dirty our personal cell phones can get and how easily they can become transmitters of the virus as easily as sending a text. A recent study by scientists at the University of Arizona found that cell phones carry ten times more bacteria than most toilet seats!

People check their phones many times a day. For most of us, our cell phone has become a natural extension of our bodies. Human skin is covered in naturally occurring microbes and oils that transfer to our phones every time we touch it. Some of these won’t make us sick but we also pick up germs and bacteria from everything we touch in our environment and transfer that to our phones as well. E. Coli has been found on phones, which makes sense as many people take their phones into the bathroom with them.

Viruses can also be spread by cell phones. Imagine you have the flu and a sneeze takes you by surprise. Droplets of mucus can land on your phone screen. If your child picks it up to play a game, they can pick up the virus from your phone screen. Just touching the screen won’t infect a person but if they happen to touch their lips or eyes or nose, the virus that they picked up from a phone can infect them.

In this time of pandemic, we are all aware of the importance of frequent hand washing and sanitizing. This can help but phones should also be washed and sanitized regularly. Spraying them with an alcohol and water solution and wiping them with a clean, damp cloth can clean cell phone screens very effectively. Now, more than ever, people are more aware of the dangers of touching things that may be vectors of this virus. They are conflicted about bringing their phones out and using them and worried about cleanliness.

Smart headphones or “hearables” have the potential to put your entire smartphone in your ear! They are earbuds or headphones, or even sunglasses, with speakers, bluetooth capabilities, sensors to track movement and heart rate, and microphones to receive voice commands and make phone calls. Digital voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant have exploded in popularity in the past few years and their integration into hearables allows for human computer interaction without the need to touch and tap on a device.

This desire for touchless technology has led to smart speakers and hearables having the fastest adoption rate of any new hardware market in years, says Strategy Analytics analyst Cliff Raskind, and this desire is only bound to increase as we become more aware of touch based technology being a major vector for disease transmission. These devices have optimized sound quality, microphone pick up and noise cancellation. Their built-in voice assistants can be activated with voice commands, which are already being used for a wide range of tasks and applications.Technologies like voice recognition, language translation capabilities, and sport performance monitoring, allow for a very broad range of beneficial use cases.

Over the last few years our rapid adoption has led to reliance on our smartphones and made them indispensable in our lives, and yet, in this time where we are looking to reduce the transmission of COVID 19, smartphones encourage the spread of germs by touch. We’re now experiencing new feelings of anxiety about these devices, knowing they are potential vectors for disease. Luckily there is already a safer and healthier alternative available to us, touchless, ambient, conversational interfaces. In our homes, we can leverage our smart speakers and smart displays to supply the information and social communication we need without the need to sanitize them constantly, and while on-the-go, we will increasingly leverage our hearables for touchless and safe, voice- based interactions, entertainment, navigation and communication.

The COVID19 pandemic is putting an unprecedented strain on health services all over the globe. Not only are our hospitals woefully short on equipment, supplies, and ventilators, but there is a shortage of doctors and nurses as well. Every resource is stretched to the limit and as a result, there is a shortage of non-emergency, diagnostic care. It’s here where chatbots can serve as a kind of health assistant, giving suggestions on how to improve or maintain health, reminding people to take their medications, order prescriptions, and book doctors appointments. This can help relieve the stress on our over pressured healthcare systems.

Recently we have seen that Telehealth hotlines that have been set up for supporting those with symptoms of COVID-19 are being completely overwhelmed with callers, causing jammed lines and a complete loss of service. It’s here where medical chatbots which have been around for a few years are really getting their chance to shine. Chatbots are smart, algorithm powered, text or voice based algorithms that are able to intuitively ask health questions, make suggestions, and give possible diagnoses. They’re quickly becoming a vital resource for these times, when tele-health lines are jammed and it’s becoming more and more difficult to access primary care physicians. The CDC website is now using a chatbot text based application they developed with Microsoft, to help website users screen their symptoms to see if they are a possible candidate for COVID19 testing and diagnosis. It also includes an interactive case tracker map that enables the user to see the number of active, recovered and fatal cases around the world and in every US state.

Apple’s Siri is also able to respond to users asking “Do I have the coronavirus?” Siri will ask the user if they are experiencing relevant symptoms and give advice about self-isolation and provide links to other health resources. While chatbots can offer suggestions and ideas, they are not meant to make definitive diagnoses. They are a diagnostic tool that can be helpful and also save valuable time for doctors who are stretched beyond their limits right now. If someone is experiencing symptoms a chatbot can help them determine if they need to seek further care. But in this time where we are supposed to be staying home in self-isolation, a medical chatbot can help people stay home and care for themselves if symptoms are manageable, thus reducing the need for crowded waiting rooms where the virus can spread easily. Self -isolation is helping to slow the spread of the virus but one side effect of this strategy is the detrimental effects that isolation can have on human emotions. Believe it or not, Conversational AI is working on how to alleviate the universal experience of human loneliness.|

“It is now common for people to say “I love you” to their smart speakers.” This was said by Professor Trevor Cox, an acoustic engineer at Salford University. And he is not far off. Especially in this time of pandemic when self-isolation is the single most important thing regular people can do to help slow the spread of the virus.

Staying at home can be quite a nice change of pace for many of us. Especially those of us with loving partners and families. What could be cozier than enjoying home-cooked meals, (or take-out), watching movies or binge watching a Netflix series, or attempting a complicated jigsaw puzzle with a loved one? Many families are enjoying the respite from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life. The increase in quality family time is one silver lining in this pandemic cloud.

But what is mandated self-isolation like for those who live alone? Some of the people most vulnerable to the COVID 19 virus are senior citizens. They may be widowed and live alone, and now they cannot even safely leave their homes and socialize with friends without increased risk of contracting a deadly virus. They cannot even have visitors. What effect will weeks or even months of mandated isolation have on people who live alone? Loneliness is very bad for human beings. Studies have been done that show that a prolonged experience of loneliness can be as detrimental to health as being a heavy smoker, as well as contributing to poor mental health. Human beings are social creatures and there is something about hearing another voice and using language to interact with others that is necessary to our well-being. In these times of isolation, many researchers believe that smart speakers and conversational AI agents can help.

Virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant can be helpful when organizing appointments or setting up reminders for meetings. They can check the weather for you and play music or help you find phone numbers or addresses. They can even communicate on a rudimentary level and studies have been done that show that even this basic level of communication is beneficial. In Sweden and the United Kingdom, there are grant programs that provide senior citizens living alone with a Google Home Speaker and they show the benefits of being able to speak and hear a voice, at any time of day, even in the middle of the night. But if you say something or ask them something that is outside of what they have been programmed to do, the conversation will come to an end. They will simply say “ I don’t know,” or “I don’t understand.” The nuances and subtleties of human language are beyond their capabilities. They operate within specific ‘domains’ and outside of these domains they must fail gracefully and bow out of the conversation, limiting their value as a socially capable and empathetic conversational partners.

This however seems to be changing, we’re beginning to enter a new era of chatbots that are capable of ‘open domain’ conversation on a level never before seen. Google has recently introduced Meena, which they describe as a “Human-like, open-domain, end-to-end, neural conversational model that learns to respond sensibly to a given conversational context. The key is that Meena has the ability to learn and reflect on conversational context, to a degree that’s never before been possible. Meena is trained on 8.5 terabytes of social media data and dialogue. It is a generative language model constructed to actually listen to what a person says and formulate a response. In fact, Meena continues to learn and builds knowledge off of what a person says to it. Meena can actually learn about your affinity for bad jokes and come up with a few of its own!

The Turing Test was developed by Alan Turing in 1950 to test the abilities of machines to impersonate humans. To date, no machine or AI has passed this test. But Google claims that with their development of Meena, that goal is in reach. Conversational AI’s like Meena could be built into Google Home speakers and change the world of voice technology as social capabilities become ingrained into digital voice assistants. This technology is very important now more than ever, especially with the very necessary social constraints resulting from the COVID19 pandemic. In the absence of human companionship, our AI companions could become our best friends, or at least fill the gap that’s been left in our lives in our current context, especially those that are alone in isolation.

Former Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel once said,

“ Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is that it’s an opportunity to do things you thought you could not do before.”

This global pandemic is a crisis. There is a lot of fear as we face unprecedented levels of stress and difficulty. We are more aware than ever of the fragility of human life. But times of crisis can drive innovations in technology that can improve our lives and help during these difficult times. The times are changing and we are moving from a world of touch controlled devices, to the arena of voice user interfaces, reducing the spread of germs from surface contact.

Our healthcare system is under great strain with a shortage of medical equipment and personnel to fight the virus. This is driving the more widespread use of sophisticated medical assistant chatbot technology. This is giving us the power to understand our symptoms, schedule appointments, and take some of the burden off of our doctors and nurses. With self-isolation and the accompanying epidemic of loneliness, the development of virtual assistants with social capabilities can help us feel connected in a time where people living alone cannot seek social interactions with others. Times of crisis can fuel fear and despair but they can also drive creativity and innovation. Conversational AI is a technology being driven by this crisis and its possibilities are limitless.

Sources:

Ces 2020: 10 Takeaways and Tech Trends To Watch
Jessica Groopman — https://www.kaleidoinsights.com/ces-2020-tech-trends/

Your Cell Phone Is 10 Times Dirtier Than a Toilet Seat
Abigail Abrams — https://time.com/4908654/cell-phone-bacteria/

The Future Is Ear: Why “hearables” Are Finally Tech’s Next Big ThingJohnoswald — https://www.fastcompany.com/90212065/the-future-is-ear-why-hearables-are-finally-techs-next-big-thing

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html (Coronavirus Self-Checker chatbot Clara)

Testing For Covid-19
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/23/21190600/apple-siri-coronavirus-covid-19-symptoms-healthcare-advice-information
(Apple’s Siri now provides Coronavirus advice)

Apple’s Siri Voice Assistant Now Provides Coronavirus Advice
Jon Porter — https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/23/21190600/apple-siri-coronavirus-covid-19-symptoms-healthcare-advice-informationhttps://medicalfuturist.com/top-12-health-chatbots/

Can Artificial Intelligence Fight Elderly Loneliness?
Maddy Savage — https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200325-can-voice-technologies-using-ai-fight-elderly-loneliness

Towards a Conversational Agent That Can Chat About…anything
https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/01/towards-conversational-agent-that-can.html

Google’s Meena May Be World’s First Near-human Chatbot
Marie Boran https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-s-meena-may-be-world-s-first-near-human-chatbot-1.4161262