Types of knowledge required to personalise smoking cessation letters

Abstract

The stop system generates personalised smoking-cessation letters, using as input responses to a smoking questionnaire. Generating personalised patient-information material is an area of growing interest to the medical community, since for many people changing health-related behaviour is the most effective possible medical intervention. While previous AI systems that generated personalised patient-information material were primarily based on medical knowledge, stop is largely based on knowledge of psychology, empathy, and readability. We believe such knowledge is essential in systems whose goal is to change people’s behaviour or mental state; but there are many open questions about how this knowledge should be acquired, represented, and reasoned with.