Towards healthcare personal agents

For a long time, the research on human-machine conversation and interaction has inspired futuristic visions created by film directors and science fiction writers. Nowadays, there has been great progress towards this end by the extended community of artificial intelligence scientists spanning from computer scientists to neuroscientists. In this paper we first review the tension between the latest advances in the technology of virtual agents and the limitations in the modality, complexity and sociability of conversational agent interaction. Then we identify a research challenge and target for the research and technology community. We need to create a vision and research path to create personal agents that are perceived as devoted assistants and counselors in helping end-users managing their own healthcare and well-being throughout their life. Such target is a high-payoff research agenda with high-impact on the society. In this position paper, following a review of the state-of-the-art in conversational agent technology, we discuss the challenges in spoken/multimodal/multi-sensorial interaction needed to support the development of Healthcare Personal Agents.