A Fully Generative Motivational Interviewing Counsellor Chatbot for Moving Smokers Towards the Decision to Quit
This addresses the problem of providing accessible and effective automated therapy for smokers, though it is incremental as it applies existing LLM and MI methods to a specific domain.
The researchers developed a chatbot using a state-of-the-art LLM and Motivational Interviewing to motivate smokers to quit, finding that participants' confidence to quit increased by an average of 1.7 on a 0-10 scale and the chatbot adhered to MI standards in 98% of utterances.
The conversational capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) suggest that they may be able to perform as automated talk therapists. It is crucial to know if these systems would be effective and adhere to known standards. We present a counsellor chatbot that focuses on motivating tobacco smokers to quit smoking. It uses a state-of-the-art LLM and a widely applied therapeutic approach called Motivational Interviewing (MI), and was evolved in collaboration with clinician-scientists with expertise in MI. We also describe and validate an automated assessment of both the chatbot's adherence to MI and client responses. The chatbot was tested on 106 participants, and their confidence that they could succeed in quitting smoking was measured before the conversation and one week later. Participants' confidence increased by an average of 1.7 on a 0-10 scale. The automated assessment of the chatbot showed adherence to MI standards in 98% of utterances, higher than human counsellors. The chatbot scored well on a participant-reported metric of perceived empathy but lower than typical human counsellors. Furthermore, participants' language indicated a good level of motivation to change, a key goal in MI. These results suggest that the automation of talk therapy with a modern LLM has promise.