Virtual Agents for Alcohol Use Counseling: Exploring LLM-Powered Motivational Interviewing

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2407.08095v1
• Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2024 23:50:08 GMT
• Title: Virtual Agents for Alcohol Use Counseling: Exploring LLM-Powered Motivational Interviewing
• Authors: Ian Steenstra, Farnaz Nouraei, Mehdi Arjmand, Timothy W. Bickmore,
• Abstract summary: We develop a virtual counselor capable of conducting motivational interviewing (MI) for alcohol use counseling. Our approach combines prompt engineering and integration into a user-friendly virtual platform to facilitate realistic, empathetic interactions.
• Score: 7.899257236779216
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: We introduce a novel application of large language models (LLMs) in developing a virtual counselor capable of conducting motivational interviewing (MI) for alcohol use counseling. Access to effective counseling remains limited, particularly for substance abuse, and virtual agents offer a promising solution by leveraging LLM capabilities to simulate nuanced communication techniques inherent in MI. Our approach combines prompt engineering and integration into a user-friendly virtual platform to facilitate realistic, empathetic interactions. We evaluate the effectiveness of our virtual agent through a series of studies focusing on replicating MI techniques and human counselor dialog. Initial findings suggest that our LLM-powered virtual agent matches human counselors' empathetic and adaptive conversational skills, presenting a significant step forward in virtual health counseling and providing insights into the design and implementation of LLM-based therapeutic interactions.

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