Some good points! I've been thinking about the chatbot model a lot and I echo your thoughts. I've been working with a therapist and a fiction author to combine interactive storytelling with self-reflection tools based on a variety of psychological approaches. Our main challenge has been to build a conversational engine that allows for the user's need for autonomy, agency, personalization and relatedness. This has required a lot of scripting, meaningful fixed choices and enough open-ended prompts so the users feel they are co-creating the world and having an actual conversation that goes deeper than the schematic chatbot interactions we see out there.

I'd love to talk to you about your experience at Ginger, if you're open to a chat? If so, I'm at ez.skinner89[at]gmail[dot]com.