Training Industry Magazine - January/February 2019 - 49

WHAT'S NEXT IN TECH
STELLA LEE, PH.D.

THE ROLE OF CHATBOTS
IN WORKPLACE LEARNING
While chatbots have been around for
decades (the first chatbot ELIZA was
created by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966),
only in recent years have chatbots become
a ubiquitous trend - in the form of virtual
assistants, product trainers, customer service
agents, and online tutors, to name a few.

simplify the hunt for information across
multiple sources with few clicks, make
recommendations and keep a record of
the conversations. Furthermore, some
chatbots can conduct content analysis
to further refine and personalize the
information to individual users.

By definition, a chatbot is a computer
program designed to simulate conversations
with humans through websites, mobile
apps, wearable devices, or home appliances.
In the learning and education domain,
there have been a few successful cases that
suggest the potential benefit of chatbot

* Performance support: In addition
to users seeking information, chatbots
can anticipate questions and interact
proactively to push out performance
support material, particularly for a mobile
and geographically dispersed workforce.
The ability to provide consistent answers
is useful for compliant-based content or
any other materials that require a high
level of standardization. Chatbots' 24/7
availability also work well for shift workers
or for global companies.

CHATBOTS
SHOULD NOT BE A
REPLACEMENT FOR
ACTUAL HUMAN
COMMUNICATION.
usage, particularly in settings where there
are large bodies of learners to support. One
such famous example is Jill Watson, the
artificial intelligent (AI) teaching assistant
that was based on IBM's Watson platform,
and developed to handle questions
posted in a discussion forum for Georgia
Institute of Technology's online computer
science program. Interestingly, none of
the students in the course suspected that
Jill was not human, and one student even
wanted to nominate her for a best teaching
assistant award!
In the corporate sector, chatbots are
just starting to flourish in learning and
development. The following list provides
some ideas and possible applications for the
use of chatbots in workplace learning.
* Reference and instructional assistance:
Organizations often have information in
silos, spread across many departments,
and company intranets could be
complicated to navigate with poor
information architecture. Chatbots can

* Coaching and mentoring: Not only
can chatbots scale personalized
coaching and mentoring sessions, they
help to make learners not feel judged
when they ask questions and seek
clarifications. One of the challenges in
coaching and mentoring is for people
to feel comfortable to talk openly and
honestly. Chatbots can employ dialectical
strategies to provide empathic responses,
hear another person's point of view and
accept them without judging, and to
allow people to express their feelings
and concerns.
While chatbots have the potential to create
individualized learning experiences and
support performance, there are some factors
to consider in using chatbots for learning.
* Manage expectations: Due to the
limitation of natural language processing
and machine learning algorithm, chatbot
interactions could sometimes lead to
awkward answers, frustrate users, and
cause people to develop a general sense
of mistrust. Keep in mind that even

"intelligent" chatbots are limited to certain
knowledge domains, and it is extremely
difficult for chatbots to understand
context, infer meanings, unpack
ambiguity, and to have a useful memory.
* Focus on human-centered inclusive
design: Chatbots' replies to questions are
based on their repertoire of previously
encountered questions and answers. If
most of the past questions came from
the demographics of a certain majority,
chatbots will inevitably exhibit a bias
toward the demographic majority in the
responses and potentially underserve
others. Humans need to work alongside
the system to take ethics into account and
to mitigate bias. Active monitoring and
correcting these assumptions are urgently
needed and require constant effort.
* Chatbots cannot replace humans:
Humans converse in a way that chatbots
cannot. We incorporate emotional
intelligence in our decision-making
process, we understand context to a larger
extent, and make connections or draw
inferences. While chatbots can engage and
provide services at scale, freeing up time
for staff to focus on more in-depth and
complex interventions with learners, there
are limitations in what the platform can
do. Chatbots should not be a replacement
for actual human communication. Rather,
we ought to think of them as cooperatives,
working side-by-side with us to
enhance the overall workplace learning
experience.
Dr. Stella Lee has over 20 years of experience
in consulting, planning, designing,
implementing, and measuring learning
initiatives. Today, her focus is on large-scale
learning projects including LMS evaluation
and implementation, learning analytics,
and artificial intelligent applications in
learning. Email Stella.

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https://www.chatbots.org/chatbot/eliza/ https://www.chatbotsmagazine.com/we-need-to-talk-about-biased-ai-algorithms-ead03bf964d5 https://pe.gatech.edu/blog/meet-jill-watson-georgia-techs-first-ai-teaching-assistant https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - January/February 2019