Lifelong learning and task-oriented dialogue system: what does it mean?

International audienceThe main objective of this paper is to propose a functional definition of lifelong learning system adapted to the framework of task-oriented system. We mainly identified two aspects where a lifelong learning technology could be applied in such system: improve the natural language understanding module and enrich the database used by the system. Given our definition, we present an example of how it could be implemented in an actual task-oriented dialogue system that is developed in the LIHLITH project

Lifelong and Interactive Learning of Factual Knowledge in Dialogues

Dialogue systems are increasingly using knowledge bases (KBs) storing real-world facts to help generate quality responses. However, as the KBs are inherently incomplete and remain fixed during conversation, it limits dialogue systems' ability to answer questions and to handle questions involving entities or relations that are not in the KB. In this paper, we make an attempt to propose an engine for Continuous and Interactive Learning of Knowledge (CILK) for dialogue systems to give them the ability to continuously and interactively learn and infer new knowledge during conversations. With more knowledge accumulated over time, they will be able to learn better and answer more questions. Our empirical evaluation shows that CILK is promising.Comment: Published in SIGDIAL 201

Lifelong learning et systèmes de dialogue : définition et perspectives

International audienceThis paper aims to define what could be a Lifelong Learning (LL) task-oriented dialogue system. A dialogue system should be able to learn new knowledge, after deployment and continuously, thanks to its interactions with the user. We identify two ways for a task-oriented dialogue system to perform LL: the improvement of its conversational capabilities, and the enrichment of its knowledge base. We apply these ideas to a chatbot developed as part of the LIHLITH project. We suggest that such a system should be able (1) to detect a new situation, (2) to decide when and how to interact with the user in order to extract new knowledge and (3) to adapt itself to these new knowledge by considering their reliability.Le but de cet article est de définir comment le Lifelong Learning (LL) pourrait être appliqué aux systèmes de dialogue orientés tâche. Un système de dialogue devrait être en mesure d'apprendre de nouvelles connaissances, après avoir été déployé, et ceci de manière continue grâce à ses interactions avec l'utilisateur. Nous identifions ainsi deux aspects s'appliquant à un tel système : l'amélioration de ses capacités conversationnelles, et l'enrichissement de sa base de connaissances. Nous appliquons ces idées à un chatbot développé dans le cadre du projet LIHLITH. Nous montrons ainsi qu'un tel système doit être capable (1) de détecter la présence d'une situation inconnue (2) de décider quand et comment interagir avec l'utilisateur afin d'extraire de nouvelles connaissances et (3) de s'adapter à ces nouvelles connaissances, tout en considérant la fiabilité de celles-ci