  Conversational artificial intelligence (ConvAI) systems have attracted much
academic and commercial attention recently, making significant progress on both
fronts. However, little existing work discusses how these systems can be
developed and deployed for social good in real-world applications, with
comprehensive case studies and analyses of pros and cons. In this paper, we
briefly review the progress the community has made towards better ConvAI
systems and reflect on how existing technologies can help advance social good
initiatives from various angles that are unique for ConvAI, or not yet become
common knowledge in the community. We further discuss about the challenges
ahead for ConvAI systems to better help us achieve these goals and highlight
the risks involved in their development and deployment in the real world.

Computation and Language;Computers and Society