Self-Attention Gazetteer Embeddings for Named-Entity Recognition

Recent attempts to ingest external knowledge into neural models for named-entity recognition (NER) have exhibited mixed results. In this work, we present GazSelfAttn, a novel gazetteer embedding approach that uses self-attention and match span encoding to build enhanced gazetteer embeddings. In addition, we demonstrate how to build gazetteer resources from the open source Wikidata knowledge base. Evaluations on CoNLL-03 and Ontonotes 5 datasets, show F1 improvements over baseline model from 92.34 to 92.86 and 89.11 to 89.32 respectively, achieving performance comparable to large state-of-the-art models.Comment: Preprin

Just ASK: Building an Architecture for Extensible Self-Service Spoken Language Understanding

This paper presents the design of the machine learning architecture that underlies the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) a large scale Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) Software Development Kit (SDK) that enables developers to extend the capabilities of Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa. At Amazon, the infrastructure powers over 25,000 skills deployed through the ASK, as well as AWS's Amazon Lex SLU Service. The ASK emphasizes flexibility, predictability and a rapid iteration cycle for third party developers. It imposes inductive biases that allow it to learn robust SLU models from extremely small and sparse datasets and, in doing so, removes significant barriers to entry for software developers and dialogue systems researchers.Comment: Published at the 1st Workshop on Conversational AI at NIPS 2017 (NIPS-WCAI