Texas A&M Superfund Center Develops Environmental Reporting Chatbot Prototype

Researchers at the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center are exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for engagement with communities. They have created an AI chatbot prototype called MyEcoReporter for reporting environmental concerns, making it easier for individuals and community organizations to alert authorities about potential dangers.

“The Superfund Center is focused on developing tools and models to combat chemical contamination after disasters and helping impacted communities,” said Dr. Weihsueh Chiu, the center’s deputy director and a professor in the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology (VTPP).

“A lot of the communities we work with are in proximity to industrial facilities, which might have accidents, or unintended chemical releases, especially during or after natural disasters,” he said. “But it can be difficult for a typical community member to navigate through websites and look for web forms or a phone number, especially if people only have their phone with them. Since most people are very comfortable texting, we decided to combine that with AI to test out a new reporting method.”

While the chatbot is currently only in the prototype phase, its developers hope that government agencies will see its value and decide to create their own fully functional versions.

In an article recently published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, the researchers describe the development of MyEcoReporter, which is intended to simplify the reporting process by serving as an “intermediary” for the public. 

“We thought that if a chatbot could collect the data by text messaging in a conversational way, the bot could package that information and send it on to the right authorities,” Chiu said.

Chiu and the rest of the team also considered the fact that people don’t always have positive associations with talking to bots as they worked to develop the tool.

“We didn’t want to replicate the type of negative experience that most people have when calling a pharmacy or airline that uses a voice chatbot,” he said. “We did a lot of extensive testing to make sure that our approach is focused on collecting the information that was needed in order to fill out a form. We tested four different government forms just to get a feel for what challenges there would be in putting this together.”

After the chatbot was developed, the team asked students, faculty and community members to test it out by reporting pretend hazards. 

“We then showed it to different state and county officials and even to a forum of state risk assessors,” Chiu said. “We received a lot of positive feedback on the idea, so we’re hoping that authorities will decide to use it in the near future. 

“Thankfully, it’s not something that would take millions of dollars to put together; it’s really just an intermediary system for information that agencies want to collect anyway, and a way to make reporting more accessible,” he said.

Also involved in this project were Texas A&M faculty from the School of Public Health and College of Architecture.