Conversational artificial intelligence in the AEC industry: A review of present status, challenges and opportunities

The idea of developing a system that can converse and understand human languages has been around since the 1200 s. With the advancement in artificial intelligence (AI), Conversational AI came of age in 2010 with the launch of Apple’s Siri. Conversational AI systems leveraged Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand and converse with humans via speech and text. These systems have been deployed in sectors such as aviation, tourism, and healthcare. However, the application of Conversational AI in the architecture engineering and construction (AEC) industry is lagging, and little is known about the state of research on Conversational AI. Thus, this study presents a systematic review of Conversational AI in the AEC industry to provide insights into the current development and conducted a Focus Group Discussion to highlight challenges and validate areas of opportunities. The findings reveal that Conversational AI applications hold immense benefits for the AEC industry, but it is currently underexplored. The major challenges for the under exploration were highlighted and discusses for intervention. Lastly, opportunities and future research directions of Conversational AI are projected and validated which would improve the productivity and efficiency of the industry. This study presents the status quo of a fast-emerging research area and serves as the first attempt in the AEC field. Its findings would provide insights into the new field which be of benefit to researchers and stakeholders in the AEC industry

Conversational artificial intelligence in the AEC industry: A review of present status, challenges and opportunities

The idea of developing a system that can converse and understand human languages has been around since the 1200 s. With the advancement in artificial intelligence (AI), Conversational AI came of age in 2010 with the launch of Apple’s Siri. Conversational AI systems leveraged Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand and converse with humans via speech and text. These systems have been deployed in sectors such as aviation, tourism, and healthcare. However, the application of Conversational AI in the architecture engineering and construction (AEC) industry is lagging, and little is known about the state of research on Conversational AI. Thus, this study presents a systematic review of Conversational AI in the AEC industry to provide insights into the current development and conducted a Focus Group Discussion to highlight challenges and validate areas of opportunities. The findings reveal that Conversational AI applications hold immense benefits for the AEC industry, but it is currently underexplored. The major challenges for the under exploration were highlighted and discusses for intervention. Lastly, opportunities and future research directions of Conversational AI are projected and validated which would improve the productivity and efficiency of the industry. This study presents the status quo of a fast-emerging research area and serves as the first attempt in the AEC field. Its findings would provide insights into the new field which be of benefit to researchers and stakeholders in the AEC industry

How to Make chatbots productive – A user-oriented implementation framework

Many organizations are pursuing the implementation of chatbots to enable automation of service processes. However, previous research has highlighted the existence of practical setbacks in the implementation of chatbots in corporate environments. To gain practical insights on the issues related to the implementation processes from several perspectives and stages of deployment, we conducted semi-structured interviews with developers and experts of chatbot development. Using qualitative content analysis and based on a review of literature on human computer interaction (HCI), information systems (IS), and chatbots, we present an implementation framework that supports the successful deployment of chatbots and discuss the implementation of chatbots through a user-oriented lens. The proposed framework contains 101 guiding questions to support chatbot implementation in an eight-step process. The questions are structured according to the people, activity, context, and technology (PACT) framework. The adapted PACT framework is evaluated through expert interviews and a focus group discussion (FGD) and is further applied in a case study. The framework can be seen as a bridge between science and practice that serves as a notional structure for practitioners to introduce a chatbot in a structured and user-oriented manner

Robust Dialog Management Through A Context-centric Architecture

This dissertation presents and evaluates a method of managing spoken dialog interactions with a robust attention to fulfilling the human user’s goals in the presence of speech recognition limitations. Assistive speech-based embodied conversation agents are computer-based entities that interact with humans to help accomplish a certain task or communicate information via spoken input and output. A challenging aspect of this task involves open dialog, where the user is free to converse in an unstructured manner. With this style of input, the machine’s ability to communicate may be hindered by poor reception of utterances, caused by a user’s inadequate command of a language and/or faults in the speech recognition facilities. Since a speech-based input is emphasized, this endeavor involves the fundamental issues associated with natural language processing, automatic speech recognition and dialog system design. Driven by ContextBased Reasoning, the presented dialog manager features a discourse model that implements mixed-initiative conversation with a focus on the user’s assistive needs. The discourse behavior must maintain a sense of generality, where the assistive nature of the system remains constant regardless of its knowledge corpus. The dialog manager was encapsulated into a speech-based embodied conversation agent platform for prototyping and testing purposes. A battery of user trials was performed on this agent to evaluate its performance as a robust, domain-independent, speech-based interaction entity capable of satisfying the needs of its users

Co-designing a chatbot for and with refugees and migrants

An information portal, HandbookGermany.de, is developed to support the integration of refugees and migrants into society in Germany. However, the information-seeking process is exhausting, cumbersome, and even confusing if refugees and migrants are not proficient at using web services. In light of this, a chatbot-based conversational service is considered as an alternative to enhance the information-seeking experience. For the purpose of designing products and services for refugees and migrants, a great deal of research proposes employing co-design methods as an effective means. The overall aim of this thesis is to explore, understand, and define possibilities of improving refugees and migrants’ experiences of social integration by proposing an engaging and efficient chatbot solution. Furthermore, this thesis aims to explore the necessity of co-design approach as a critical methodology to develop solutions. Therefore, the main research question in this thesis is how can a co-design approach contribute to designing a chatbot supporting social integration within the context of refugees and migrants. User experience, problems, and needs are unveiled in depth by listening to migrants and refugees’ problems, behaviors, and expectations (i.e., document studies, questionnaires, cultural probes, and expert interviews), and observing how migrants interact with the chatbot (i.e., participant observations and empathy probes). The research findings are then transformed into design questions. The designer, developers, and migrants jointly generate concepts leveraging generative toolkits in co-design workshops. By using surveys, the Method for the Assessment of eXperience (MAX), and property checklists, the resulting concepts are later validated with refugees and migrants. As research through design, this thesis draws three conclusions. Firstly, the co-design approach benefits defining problems in the complex context of refugees and migrants by supporting them in expressing ideas and thoughts. The defined problems can then be converted into design questions that promote the proceeding of the design process. Secondly, the co-design approach helps to develop mature concepts, which lays a foundation for the final design. Thirdly, the utilization of co-design tools plays an essential role in validating and refining the solution efficiently, as they make ideas concrete and visible so that refugees and migrants can easily reflect on them throughout the whole design process

Integrating an External Chat to Genesys PureCloud Call Center System by using Web Technologies.

The main aim of the thesis is to solve the customer case in using the giosg chat product inside the PureCloud call center system. Both are platforms for online customer service management, which also has several similarities in operation. The solution will enhance the user experience in giosg chat. Therefore, the goal is to develop an integrated application as middleware by utilizing web technologies to perform various synchronization of the feature. The first step in the project will investigate the PureCloud system to gain more understandings as well as figure out suitable APIs for the objective. Also, the thesis covers the knowledge about web technologies using in this scope. After all the related theories referenced, this thesis complete on a development level and production level. The process consists of developing a web server with Django, handling the data exchange with Webhooks and WebSockets and building a setup page user interface with React. The details of the process are illustrated by flow diagrams. As a result, the application succeeds in managing the agent status synchronization in diverse circumstances. It also provides the possibility to develop additional features with a modularized application structure. In conclusion, the result demonstrates the compatibility between the features of the two systems. The software solution allows customers to manage digital tools conveniently and supports them to improve their online customer service. Last but not least, it brings benefits to participating software vendors

Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development: Synthesis Report, Mobile Learning Week 2019

(First paragraph) 2019’s Mobile Learning Week (MLW), UNESCO’s flagship event for information and communication technology (ICT) in education, focused on the theme ‘Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development’. Held over five days in Paris, it comprised a sequence of high-profile events (a global conference, a policy forum and workshops, a symposium and strategy labs), and involved more than 1,500 participants from 140 countries (including Ministers of Education and ICT, other representatives from Member States, the private sector, academia and international organizations)

Proceedings of the 11th Workshop on Ubiquitous Music (UbiMus 2021)

The 11th UbiMus — Ubiquitous Music Workshop (https://dei.fe.up.pt/ubimus/) was held at the Center for High Artistic Performance, the house of the Orquestra Jazz Matosinhos (OJM) in Portugal, during September 6–8, 2021. It was organized by the Sound and Music Computing (SMC) Group of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto and INESC TEC, Portugal, and OJM in collaboration with NAP, Federal University of Acre, Brazil. Due to mobility restrictions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, a hybrid format was adopted in this year’s workshop to accommodate the remote participation of delegates and authors that could not attend the workshop at Matosinhos

An Unexpected Journey: Towards Runtime Verification of Multiagent Systems and Beyond

The Trace Expression formalism derives from works started in 2012 and is mainly used to specify and verify interaction protocols at runtime, but other applications have been devised. More specically, this thesis describes how to extend and apply such formalism in the engineering process of distributed articial intelligence systems (such as Multiagent systems). This thesis extends the state of the art through four dierent contributions: 1. Theoretical: the thesis extends the original formalism in order to represent also parametric and probabilistic specications (parametric trace expressions and probabilistic trace expressions respectively). 2. Algorithmic: the thesis proposes algorithms for verifying trace expressions at runtime in a decentralized way. The algorithms have been designed to be as general as possible, but their implementation and experimentation address scenarios where the modelled and observed events are communicative events (interactions) inside a multiagent system. 3. Application: the thesis analyzes the relations between runtime and static verication (e.g. model checking) proposing hybrid integrations in both directions. First of all, the thesis proposes a trace expression model checking approach where it shows how to statically verify LTL property on a trace expression specication. After that, the thesis presents a novel approach for supporting static verication through the addition of monitors at runtime (post-process). 4. Implementation: the thesis presents RIVERtools, a tool supporting the writing, the syntactic analysis and the decentralization of trace expressions