Abstract: A natural language processing system that trains task models for particular natural language tasks programmatically generates additional utterances for inclusion in the training set, based on the existing utterances in the training set and the existing state of a task model as generated from the original (non-augmented) training set. More specifically, the training augmentation module 220 identifies specific textual units of utterances and generates variants of the utterances based on those identified units. The identification is based on determined importances of the textual units to the output of the task model, as well as on task rules that correspond to the natural language task for which the task model is being generated. The generation of the additional utterances improves the quality of the task model without the expense of manual labeling of utterances for training set inclusion.

Abstract: Approaches for natural language processing include a multi-layer encoder for encoding words from a context and words from a question in parallel, a multi-layer decoder for decoding the encoded context and the encoded question, a pointer generator for generating distributions over the words from the context, the words from the question, and words in a vocabulary based on an output from the decoder, and a switch. The switch generates a weighting of the distributions over the words from the context, the words from the question, and the words in the vocabulary, generates a composite distribution based on the weighting of the distribution over the first words from the context, the distribution over the second words from the question, and the distribution over the words in the vocabulary, and selects words for inclusion in an answer using the composite distribution.

Abstract: The technology disclosed provides a so-called “pointer sentinel mixture architecture” for neural network sequence models that has the ability to either reproduce a token from a recent context or produce a token from a predefined vocabulary. In one implementation, a pointer sentinel-LSTM architecture achieves state of the art language modeling performance of 70.9 perplexity on the Penn Treebank dataset, while using far fewer parameters than a standard softmax LSTM.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for efficient off-policy credit assignment (ECA) in reinforcement learning. ECA allows principled credit assignment for off-policy samples, and therefore improves sample efficiency and asymptotic performance. One aspect of ECA is to formulate the optimization of expected return as approximate inference, where policy is approximating a learned prior distribution, which leads to a principled way of utilizing off-policy samples. Other features are also provided.

Abstract: Approaches for private and interpretable machine learning systems include a system for processing a query. The system includes one or more teacher modules for receiving a query and generating a respective output, one or more privacy sanitization modules for privacy sanitizing the respective output of each of the one or more teacher modules, and a student module for receiving a query and the privacy sanitized respective output of each of the one or more teacher modules and generating a result. Each of the one or more teacher modules is trained using a respective private data set. The student module is trained using a public data set. In some embodiments, human understandable interpretations of an output from the student module is provided to a model user.

Abstract: The disclosed technology reveals a hierarchical policy network, for use by a software agent, to accomplish an objective that requires execution of multiple tasks. A terminal policy learned by training the agent on a terminal task set, serves as a base task set of the intermediate task set. An intermediate policy learned by training the agent on an intermediate task set serves as a base policy of the top policy. A top policy learned by training the agent on a top task set serves as a base task set of the top task set. The agent is configurable to accomplish the objective by traversal of the hierarchical policy network. A current task in a current task set is executed by executing a previously-learned task selected from a corresponding base task set governed by a corresponding base policy, or performing a primitive action selected from a library of primitive actions.

Abstract: An online system allows user interactions using natural language expressions. The online system uses a machine learning based model to infer an intent represented by a user expression. The machine learning based model takes as input a user expression and an example expression to compute a score indicating whether the user expression matches the example expression. Based on the scores, the intent inference module determines a most applicable intent for the expression. The online system determines a confidence threshold such that user expressions indicating a high confidence are assigned the most applicable intent and user expressions indicating a low confidence are assigned an out-of-scope intent. The online system encodes the example expressions using the machine learning based model. The online system may compare an encoded user expression with encoded example expressions to identify a subset of example expressions used to determine the most applicable intent.

Abstract: Approaches for the translation of structured text include an embedding module for encoding and embedding source text in a first language, an encoder for encoding output of the embedding module, a decoder for iteratively decoding output of the encoder based on generated tokens in translated text from previous iterations, a beam module for constraining output of the decoder with respect to possible embedded tags to include in the translated text for a current iteration using a beam search, and a layer for selecting a token to be included in the translated text for the current iteration. The translated text is in a second language different from the first language. In some embodiments, the approach further includes scoring and pointer modules for selecting the token based on the output of the beam module or copied from the source text or reference text from a training pair best matching the source text.

Abstract: A computing system uses neural networks to translate natural language queries to database queries. The computing system uses a plurality of machine learning based models, each machine learning model for generating a portion of the database query. The machine learning models use an input representation generated based on terms of the input natural language query, a set of columns of the database schema, and the vocabulary of a database query language, for example, structured query language SQL. The plurality of machine learning based models may include an aggregation classifier model for determining an aggregation operator in the database query, a result column predictor model for determining the result columns of the database query, and a condition clause predictor model for determining the condition clause of the database query. The condition clause predictor is based on reinforcement learning.

Abstract: A system and corresponding method are provided for generating responses for a dialogue between a user and a computer. The system includes a memory storing information for a dialogue history and a knowledge base. An encoder may receive a new utterance from the user and generate a global memory pointer used for filtering the knowledge base information in the memory. A decoder may generate at least one local memory pointer and a sketch response for the new utterance. The sketch response includes at least one sketch tag to be replaced by knowledge base information from the memory. The system generates the dialogue computer response using the local memory pointer to select a word from the filtered knowledge base information to replace the at least one sketch tag in the sketch response.

Abstract: Approaches for multitask learning as question answering include a method for training that includes receiving a plurality of training samples including training samples from a plurality of task types, presenting the training samples to a neural model to generate an answer, determining an error between the generated answer and the natural language ground truth answer for each training sample presented, and adjusting parameters of the neural model based on the error. Each of the training samples includes a natural language context, question, and ground truth answer. An order in which the training samples are presented to the neural model includes initially selecting the training samples according to a first training strategy and switching to selecting the training samples according to a second training strategy. In some embodiments the first training strategy is a sequential training strategy and the second training strategy is a joint training strategy.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide a provide a fully unsupervised model for text compression. Specifically, the unsupervised model is configured to identify an optimal deletion path for each input sequence of texts (e.g., a sentence) and words from the input sequence are gradually deleted along the deletion path. To identify the optimal deletion path, the unsupervised model may adopt a pretrained bidirectional language model (BERT) to score each candidate deletion based on the average perplexity of the resulting sentence and performs a simple greedy look-ahead tree search to select the best deletion for each step.

Abstract: A method of classifying three-dimensional (3D) data includes receiving three-dimensional (3D) data and processing the 3D data using a neural network that includes a plurality of subnetworks arranged in a sequence and the data is processed through each of the subnetworks. Each of the subnetworks is configured to receive an output generated by a preceding subnetwork in the sequence, process the output through a plurality of parallel 3D convolution layer paths of varying convolution volume, process the output through a parallel pooling path, and concatenate output of the 3D convolution layer paths and the pooling path to generate an output representation from each of the subnetworks. Following processing the data through the subnetworks, the method includes processing the output of a last one of the subnetworks in the sequence through a vertical pooling layer to generate an output and classifying the received 3D data based upon the generated output.

Abstract: A system is provided for natural language processing. In some embodiments, the system includes an encoder for generating context-specific word vectors for at least one input sequence of words. The encoder is pre-trained using training data for performing a first natural language processing task. A neural network performs a second natural language processing task on the at least one input sequence of words using the context-specific word vectors. The first natural language process task is different from the second natural language processing task and the neural network is separately trained from the encoder. In some embodiments, the first natural processing task can be machine translation, and the second natural processing task can be one of sentiment analysis, question classification, entailment classification, and question answering.

Abstract: The technology disclosed proposes using a combination of computationally cheap, less-accurate bag of words (BoW) model and computationally expensive, more-accurate long short-term memory (LSTM) model to perform natural processing tasks such as sentiment analysis. The use of cheap, less-accurate BoW model is referred to herein as “skimming”. The use of expensive, more-accurate LSTM model is referred to herein as “reading”. The technology disclosed presents a probability-based guider (PBG). PBG combines the use of BoW model and the LSTM model. PBG uses a probability thresholding strategy to determine, based on the results of the BoW model, whether to invoke the LSTM model for reliably classifying a sentence as positive or negative. The technology disclosed also presents a deep neural network-based decision network (DDN) that is trained to learn the relationship between the BoW model and the LSTM model and to invoke only one of the two models.

Abstract: Systems and methods for unifying question answering and text classification via span extraction include a preprocessor for preparing a source text and an auxiliary text based on a task type of a natural language processing task, an encoder for receiving the source text and the auxiliary text from the preprocessor and generating an encoded representation of a combination of the source text and the auxiliary text, and a span-extractive decoder for receiving the encoded representation and identifying a span of text within the source text that is a result of the NLP task. The task type is one of entailment, classification, or regression. In some embodiments, the source text includes one or more of text received as input when the task type is entailment, a list of classifications when the task type is entailment or classification, or a list of similarity options when the task type is regression.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide unsupervised density-based clustering to infer table structure from document. Specifically, a number of words are identified from a block of text in an noneditable document, and the spatial coordinates of each word relative to the rectangular region are identified. Based on the word density of the rectangular region, the words are grouped into clusters using a heuristic radius search method. Words that are grouped into the same cluster are determined to be the element that belong to the same cell. In this way, the cells of the table structure can be identified. Once the cells are identified based on the word density of the block of text, the identified cells can be expanded horizontally or grouped vertically to identify rows or columns of the table structure.

Abstract: The technology disclosed proposes using a combination of computationally cheap, less-accurate bag of words (BoW) model and computationally expensive, more-accurate long short-term memory (LSTM) model to perform natural processing tasks such as sentiment analysis. The use of cheap, less-accurate BoW model is referred to herein as “skimming”. The use of expensive, more-accurate LSTM model is referred to herein as “reading”. The technology disclosed presents a probability-based guider (PBG). PBG combines the use of BoW model and the LSTM model. PBG uses a probability thresholding strategy to determine, based on the results of the BoW model, whether to invoke the LSTM model for reliably classifying a sentence as positive or negative. The technology disclosed also presents a deep neural network-based decision network (DDN) that is trained to learn the relationship between the BoW model and the LSTM model and to invoke only one of the two models.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide methods and systems for training task-oriented dialogue (TOD) language models. In some embodiments, a TOD language model may receive a TOD dataset including a plurality of dialogues and a model input sequence may be generated from the dialogues using a first token prefixed to each user utterance and a second token prefixed to each system response of the dialogues. In some embodiments, the first token or the second token may be randomly replaced with a mask token to generate a masked training sequence and a masked language modeling (MLM) loss may be computed using the masked training sequence. In some embodiments, the TOD language model may be updated based on the MLM loss.

Abstract: Systems and methods for unifying question answering and text classification via span extraction include a preprocessor for preparing a source text and an auxiliary text based on a task type of a natural language processing task, an encoder for receiving the source text and the auxiliary text from the preprocessor and generating an encoded representation of a combination of the source text and the auxiliary text, and a span-extractive decoder for receiving the encoded representation and identifying a span of text within the source text that is a result of the NLP task. The task type is one of entailment, classification, or regression. In some embodiments, the source text includes one or more of text received as input when the task type is entailment, a list of classifications when the task type is entailment or classification, or a list of similarity options when the task type is regression.