Development of customized conversational interfaces with Deep Learning techniques

This Bachelor’s thesis will cover the end-to-end process of developing a personalized conversational interface for a specific domain, using Deep Learning techniques. In particular, it will focus on the study of the Dialog Manager module, which is in charge of deciding the next system response based on the current dialog state. AlthoughthereisplentyofliteratureaboutMachineLearningappliedtotheconstruction of dialog management models, there is very little reference to the utilization of Deep Learning for such task. As a result, this work analyzes the improvement that deep neural networks can bring to accuracy. Several models are created with TensorFlow, and comparisons are made with traditional Machine Learning solutions. Results show that Deep Learning is not the most recommended approach for this type of problems, yet further research is suggested for more complex datasets. After this, one of the Deep Learning models, based on a train scheduling domain, is used for the implementation of the dialog manager inside a real spoken dialog system. To integrate the rest of required components of such technology (automatic speech recognizer, natural language understanding module and text-to-speech service), a modern framework is used: DialogFlow. With this platform, a complete chatbot is built in the form of an assistant in the train scheduling domain. Evaluationof thespoken dialogsystemwith real users generatesavery positivefeedback, demonstrating that a Deep Learning based dialog manager is a valid solution in commercial conversational interfaces.Ingeniería Informátic

Proceedings

Proceedings of the NODALIDA 2009 workshop Nordic Perspectives on the CLARIN Infrastructure of Language Resources. Editors: Rickard Domeij, Kimmo Koskenniemi, Steven Krauwer, Bente Maegaard, Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson and Koenraad de Smedt. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 5 (2009), v+45 pp. © 2009 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/9207

Human-technology integration with industrial conversational agents: A conceptual architecture and a taxonomy for manufacturing

Conversational agents are systems with great potential to enhance human-computer interaction in industrial settings. Although the number of applications of conversational agents in many fields is growing, there is no shared view of the elements to design and implement for chatbots in the industrial field. The paper presents the combination of many research contributions into an integrated conceptual architecture, for developing industrial conversational agents using Nickerson's methodology. The conceptual architecture consists of five core modules; every module consists of specific elements and approaches. Furthermore, the paper defines a taxonomy from the study of empirical applications of manufacturing conversational agents. Indeed, some applications of chatbots in manufacturing are available but those have never been collected in single research. The paper fills this gap by analyzing the empirical cases and presenting a qualitative analysis, with verification of the proposed taxonomy. The contribution of the article is mainly to illustrate the elements needed for the development of a conversational agent in manufacturing: researchers and practitioners can use the proposed conceptual architecture and taxonomy to more easily investigate, define, and develop all the elements for chatbot implementation

Voice Operated Information System in Slovak

Speech communication interfaces (SCI) are nowadays widely used in several domains. Automated spoken language human-computer interaction can replace human-human interaction if needed. Automatic speech recognition (ASR), a key technology of SCI, has been extensively studied during the past few decades. Most of present systems are based on statistical modeling, both at the acoustic and linguistic levels. Increased attention has been paid to speech recognition in adverse conditions recently, since noise-resistance has become one of the major bottlenecks for practical use of speech recognizers. Although many techniques have been developed, many challenges still have to be overcome before the ultimate goal -- creating machines capable of communicating with humans naturally -- can be achieved. In this paper we describe the research and development of the first Slovak spoken language dialogue system. The dialogue system is based on the DARPA Communicator architecture. The proposed system consists of the Galaxy hub and telephony, automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, backend, transport and VoiceXML dialogue management modules. The SCI enables multi-user interaction in the Slovak language. Functionality of the SLDS is demonstrated and tested via two pilot applications, ``Weather forecast for Slovakia'' and ``Timetable of Slovak Railways''. The required information is retrieved from Internet resources in multi-user mode through PSTN, ISDN, GSM and/or VoIP network