Wellbeing Technology: Beyond Chatbots

Abstract

Digitalization has revolutionized almost every sector of our life, including both the private and the professional one, just as the relationship between man and machine/computer is radically changing our lives. Among many sectors, the authors have chosen to explore how digitalization and new technologies are mutating the healthcare, focusing in particular on the exploitation of chatbots and on the forms of interactions with them. Human computer interfaces are becoming more important in a world whose complexity is increased by technology and in which certain groups of people risk being excluded. Fragile categories, health support services, are common keywords because one of the most important games is played on them and on the concept of social innovation through technology. In this context, social differences can be smoothed out, but can also be magnified. In sectors like education or healthcare, such a level of inequality could be reached, that there could be A-class citizens, who would have access to technological prostheses, thus increasing their capacities in some way, and B-class citizens who would be excluded. The authors start giving an overview of the main technologic innovations in the field of healthcare and explaining how they can magnify the risk of exclusion. Then the focus is shifted first on the interaction between people and chatbots used for generic purposes, and then on the central theme of health-bots. Finally, in the conclusions, the authors give a reading about the main interaction forms that can help people using these systems.