Creating a Health Chatbot That Makes Recommendations to People Based on Their Characteristics, Current Lifestyle and Health Goals

Chatbots have become pervasive in our society. While capable of doing impressive things, most chatbots do not discriminate among users, providing similar answers to the same queries posed by different users. However, different people can ask the same question for different reasons or with different needs and providing each one with the same response may not be optimal. For example, advising a questioner who asks for diet recommendations to give up all sweets is generally good advice by ill-advised if the person is known to love sweets. Instead, the chatbot should take into account information about the person in formulating its answer. The present paper describes the creation of a health chatbot that integrates with My Youthspan©, a health and longevity product that uses extensive information about a person’s characteristics.