Dialogue based interfaces for universal access.

Conversation provides an excellent means of communication for almost all people. Consequently, a conversational interface is an excellent mechanism for allowing people to interact with systems. Conversational systems are an active research area, but a wide range of systems can be developed with current technology. More sophisticated interfaces can take considerable effort, but simple interfaces can be developed quite rapidly. This paper gives an introduction to the current state of the art of conversational systems and interfaces. It describes a methodology for developing conversational interfaces and gives an example of an interface for a state benefits web site. The paper discusses how this interface could improve access for a wide range of people, and how further development of this interface would allow a larger range of people to use the system and give them more functionality

The computational therapeutic: exploring Weizenbaum's ELIZA as a history of the present

This paper explores the history of ELIZA, a computer programme approximating a Rogerian therapist, developed by Jospeh Weizenbaum at MIT in the 1970s, as an early AI experiment. ELIZA’s reception provoked Weizenbaum to re-appraise the relationship between ‘computer power and human reason’ and to attack the ‘powerful delusional thinking’ about computers and their intelligence that he understood to be widespread in the general public and also amongst experts. The root issue for Weizenbaum was whether human thought could be ‘entirely computable’ (reducible to logical formalism). This also provoked him to re-consider the nature of machine intelligence and to question the instantiation of its logics in the social world, which would come to operate, he said, as a ‘slow acting poison’. Exploring Weizenbaum’s 20th Century apostasy, in the light of ELIZA, illustrates ways in which contemporary anxieties and debates over machine smartness connect to earlier formations. In particular, this article argues that it is in its designation as a computational therapist that ELIZA is most significant today. ELIZA points towards a form of human–machine relationship now pervasive, a precursor of the ‘machinic therapeutic’ condition we find ourselves in, and thus speaks very directly to questions concerning modulation, autonomy, and the new behaviorism that are currently arising

Support for Internet-Based Commonsense Processing – Causal Knowledge Discovery Using Japanese “If” Forms

Abstract. This paper introduces our method for causal knowledge re-trieval from the Internet resources, its results and evaluation of using it in utterance creation process. Our system automatically retrieves common-sensical knowledge from the Web resources by using simple web-mining and information extraction techniques. For retrieving causal knowledge the system uses three of specific several Japanese “if ” forms. From the results we can conclude that Japanese web pages indexed by a common search engine spiders are enough to discover common causal relationships and this knowledge can be used for making Human-Computer Interfaces sound more natural and interesting than while using classic methods

Some Empirical Criteria for Attributing Creativity to a Computer Program

Peer reviewedPostprin

Chatbot Theory: A naïve and elementary theory for dialogue management

Due to the increasing interested and use of chatbot, its properties and operation possibilities shall be proper realized matching both safety and security issues as well as present the several uses and compositions that this technology supports. This paper focus is on dialogue management since it is considered the core of a chatbot. The dialogue manager is responsible to, more than to transform an input sentence into an output one, hold the illusion of a human conversation. In this sense, it is presented an inceptive theoretical framework through a formal way for chatbots that can be used as a reference to explore, compose, build and discuss chatbots. The discussion is performed mostly on ELIZA since, due to its historical records, it can be considered an important reference chatbot, nevertheless, the proposed theory is compatible with the most recent technologies such those using machine and deep learning. The paper then presents some sketchy instances in order to explore the support provided by the theory.This paper has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-0070 43 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - Project UID/CEC/ 00319/2013

From process models to chatbots

The effect of digital transformation in organizations needs to go beyond automation, so that human capabilities are also augmented. A possibility in this direction is to make formal representations of processes more accessible for the actors involved. On this line, this paper presents a methodology to transform a formal process description into a conversational agent, which can guide a process actor through the required steps in a user-friendly conversation. The presented system relies on dialog systems and natural language processing and generation techniques, to automatically build a chatbot from a process model. A prototype tool – accessible online – has been developed to transform a process model in BPMN into a chatbot, defined in Artificial Intelligence Marking Language (AIML), which has been evaluated over academic and industrial professionals, showing potential into improving the gap between process understanding and execution.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Eliza effect and its dangers: from demystification to gender critique

This essay provides a gender critique of the Eliza effect. It delineates the way in which the Eliza effect is operationalised in AI research even as it is ostensibly demystified, for example in the writings of Douglas Hofstadter and Joseph Weizenbaum. It then exposes the gendered assumptions embedded in the nomenclature used to name this misperception of the computer as having capabilities equivalent to the human. It traces the genealogy of that nomenclature back through Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, to George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. A close reading of the play is deployed in order to reveal the structural inequities of gender, class, and who or what gets to be human, that are both explored in the play and encoded in the operation and operationalisations of the Eliza effect. It concludes by attending to that operation and operationalisation in relation to today’s Virtual Personal Assistant’s, and makes a case for the importance of critique in order to expose the inequitable structures of power obscured and compounded by the Eliza effect – both its name, and that which it names

Взаимосвязь ожирения и нарушений углеводного обмена с синдромом обструктивного апноэ во сне

Представлены литературные данные клинических исследований, в которых синдром обструктивного апноэ во сне (СОАС) рассматривается как фактор риска развития нарушений углеводного обмена, в том числе сахарного диабета 2−го типа. Анализируется взаимосвязь наиболее значимых факторов, влияющих на прогрессирование нарушений углеводного обмена у пациентов с СОАС. Приведен анализ данных о связи СОАС с диабетической автономной нейропатией и инсулинорезистентностью. Рассматривается возможность применения СРАР−терапии для коррекции метаболических нарушений у пациентов с сахарным диабетом.Представлено літературні дані клінічних досліджень, у яких синдром обструктивного апное під час сну (СОАС) розглянуто як фактор ризику розвитку порушень вуглеводного обміну, у тому числі цукрового діабету 2−го типу. Аналізується взаємозв'язок найбільш значущих факторів, що впливають на прогресування порушень вуглеводного обміну у пацієнтів із СОАС. Наведено аналіз даних про зв'язок СОАС із діабетичною автономною нейропатією та інсулінорезистентністю. Розглянуто можливість використання СРАР−терапії для корекції метаболічних порушень у пацієнтів із цукровим діабетом.Literature data about clinical trials, in which sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is featured as a risk factor of carbohydrate metabolism disorders, including type 2 diabetes mellitus, are presented. Association of the most significant factors influencing the progress carbohydrate metabolism disorders in patients with SAS is analyzed. The data about the association of SAS and diabetic autonomous neuropathy and insulin resistance are featured. Possibility to use CPAP therapy for correction of metabolic disorders in patients with diabetes mellitus is discussed

Tacit knowledg and the problem of computer modelling cognitive processes in science

Once one has said that there is a “tacit dimension” of some sort to communication or to some cognitive activity, it seems like an appropriate step to make it a topic for research. The difficulty with this suggestion is that it assumes that in fact we have some sort of unproblematic mode of access to our implicit understandings, to the “tacit dimension.” To be sure, sometimes portions of this “dimension” are revealed to us, as when we find that others don’t share some procedure we follow “naturally” or habitually, or when we find ourselves in circumstances where these procedures fail, and we are forced to, and can, find replacements for them. But these are perhaps exceptional cases, revealed for us through contingent and possibly rare circumstances. And if this is so, it follows that a project of revealing the tacit dimension would depend on some premises that would give one some assurances that one’s techniques indeed reveal the necessary parts of it. It is one thing to have a method of turning over rocks to see if there are salamanders under them; it is another to form a project of counting all the salamanders in a given area, for one doesn’t know that they are all assessable by the known means

Theopolis Monk: Envisioning a Future of A.I. Public Service

Visions of future applications of artificial intelligence tend to veer toward the naively optimistic or frighteningly dystopian, neglecting the numerous human factors necessarily involved in the design, deployment and oversight of such systems. The dream that AI systems may somehow replace the irregularities and struggles of human governance with unbiased efficiency is seen to be non-scientific and akin to a religious hope, whereas the current trajectory of AI development indicates that it will increasingly serve as a tool by which humans exercise control over other humans. To facilitate the responsible development of AI systems for the public good, we discuss current conversations on the topics of transparency and accountability