Title: Evaluating Quality of Chatbots and Intelligent Conversational Agents,
Abstract: Chatbots are one class of intelligent, conversational software agents
activated by natural language input (which can be in the form of text, voice,
or both). They provide conversational output in response, and if commanded, can
sometimes also execute tasks. Although chatbot technologies have existed since
the 1960s and have influenced user interface development in games since the
early 1980s, chatbots are now easier to train and implement. This is due to
plentiful open source code, widely available development platforms, and
implementation options via Software as a Service (SaaS). In addition to
enhancing customer experiences and supporting learning, chatbots can also be
used to engineer social harm - that is, to spread rumors and misinformation, or
attack people for posting their thoughts and opinions online. This paper
presents a literature review of quality issues and attributes as they relate to
the contemporary issue of chatbot development and implementation. Finally,
quality assessment approaches are reviewed, and a quality assessment method
based on these attributes and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is proposed
and examined.