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 Experience our Psychological First Aid Chatbot on WhatsApp, available in three languages. Get instant, expert guidance anytime, right from your favorite messaging app! click here

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During the Hammas-Israel War, the lab established two AI systems ready to launch upon funding. The first is a psychological first aid chatbot for rescue and army forces, and the second is a crisis management 3-user coordinated system with a decision support algorithm to serve more than half a million evacuees. BEER-SHEVA, Israel, November 26, 2023 – Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's AI for Social Welfare Lab has developed an artificial intelligence-based WhatsApp bot that enables ordinary citizens, rescue and security forces to assist shock victims and return them to normal function. EmoBOT is based on four evidence-based psychological first aid interventions (PFA) and gives the user (from rescue and army forces) simple recommendations on how to assist the trauma victim in less than a minute based on and fit the description of the event. Providing case-specific PFA, according to EmoBOT instructions, will prevent hundreds of trauma victims from developing PTSD. The Bot is now available in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.

 

Symptoms of shock most often appear after a sudden traumatic event and may include paralysis, tremors, uncontrollable crying, or vomiting. The accepted models for assisting shock victims following a traumatic event include several actions that a person must perform on another person in shock or on a group and are based on CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) models. Therefore, the bot may be used by tens of thousands of professionals and volunteers in the rescue and security forces. The bot gives the first responder guidelines adapted to the unique event and symptoms of the victim (earthquake, exposure to combat, accident, video containing difficult scenes, or any mass casualty event) in less than half a minute, with the aim of restoring the person suffering from symptoms of high-intensity shock to function. The bot is based on a large-scale language model in artificial intelligence that has been calibrated to first-response models accepted in the world of emergency medicine and psychology and trained on real cases of group or individual shock victims and on a variety of incidents in the civilian and military arenas.

 

The chatbot is embedded in WhatsApp and is, therefore, easy to use. Usually, during the event itself, adrenaline levels are high, and the signs of shock only appear after the event, when the person has had some time to refresh or has lapsed into silence or in the hospital while the person is already receiving treatment. The bot will be available for the public upon funding of the project.

 

Link to a  EmoBOT video sample (including example in English):

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