Abstract: A method of adapting a computerized assistant program to satisfy an updated constraint. The method comprises maintaining a dialogue history including a first utterance that indicates an initial constraint. The method further comprises receiving a second utterance indicating a new constraint that conflicts with the initial constraint. The method further comprises recognizing a revision function statement parametrized by a reference to an initial computerized assistant program configured to satisfy the initial constraint, and a reference to the new constraint. The method further comprises executing instructions derived from the revision function statement to return a revised computerized assistant program that is configured to satisfy the new constraint.

Abstract: A method comprising recognizing a user utterance including an ambiguity. The method further comprises using a previously-trained code-generation machine to produce, from the user utterance, a data-flow program including a search-history function. The search-history function is configured to select a highest-confidence disambiguating concept from one or more candidate concepts stored in a context-specific dialogue history.

Abstract: A method for configuring an automated dialogue system uses traces of interactions via a graphical user interface (GUI) for an application. Each trace includes interactions in the context of a plurality of presentations of the GUI. Elements of one or more presentations of the GUI are identified, and templates are associated with portions of the trace. Each template has one or more defined inputs and a defined output. For each template of the plurality of templates, the portions of the traces are processed to automatically configure the template by specifying a procedure for providing values of inputs to the template via the GUI and obtaining a value of an output. The automated dialogue system is configured with the configured templates, thereby avoiding manual configuration of the dialogue system.

Abstract: A method, comprising recognizing a user utterance for processing. The method further comprises using a previously-trained code-generation machine to generate, from the user utterance, a data-flow program configured to produce a return value upon successful execution. The method further comprises beginning execution of the data-flow program. Responsive to reaching an error condition resulting from execution of the data-flow program, the method further comprises, prior to the data-flow program producing the return value, suspending execution of the data flow program. The method further comprises using the previously-trained code-generation machine to generate an error-handling data-flow program, wherein the error-handling data-flow program is configured to produce the return value; beginning execution of the error-handling data-flow program to produce the return value; and outputting the return value.

Abstract: A method, comprising recognizing a user utterance for processing. The method further comprises using a previously-trained code-generation machine to generate, from the user utterance, a data-flow program configured to produce a return value upon successful execution. The method further comprises beginning execution of the data-flow program. Responsive to reaching an error condition resulting from execution of the data-flow program, the method further comprises, prior to the data-flow program producing the return value, suspending execution of the data flow program. The method further comprises using the previously-trained code-generation machine to generate an error-handling data-flow program, wherein the error-handling data-flow program is configured to produce the return value; beginning execution of the error-handling data-flow program to produce the return value; and outputting the return value.

Abstract: A method comprising recognizing a user utterance including an ambiguity. The method further comprises using a previously-trained code-generation machine to produce, from the user utterance, a data-flow program including a search-history function. The search-history function is configured to select a highest-confidence disambiguating concept from one or more candidate concepts stored in a context-specific dialogue history.

Abstract: A data collection system is based on a general set of dialogue acts which are derived from a database schema. Crowd workers perform two types of tasks: (i) identification of sensical dialogue paths and (ii) performing context-dependent paraphrasing of these dialogue paths into real dialogues. The end output of the system is a set of training examples of real dialogues which have been annotated with their logical forms. This data can be used to train all three components of the dialogue system: (i) the semantic parser for understanding context-dependent utterances, (ii) the dialogue policy for generating new dialogue acts given the current state, and (iii) the generation system for both deciding what to say and how to render it in natural language.

Abstract: A system that generates natural language content. The system generates and maintains a dialogue state representation having a process view, query view, and data view. The three-view dialogue state representation is continuously updated during discourse between an agent and a user, and rules can be automatically generated based on the discourse. Upon a content generation event, an object description can be generated based on the dialogue state representation. A string is then determined from the object description, using a hybrid approach of the automatically generated rules and other rules learned from annotation and other user input. The string is translated to text or speech and output by the agent. The present system also incorporates learning techniques, for example when ranking output and processing annotation templates.

Abstract: A method for configuring an automated dialogue system uses traces of interactions via a graphical user interface (GUI) for an application. Each trace includes interactions in the context of a plurality of presentations of the GUI. Elements of one or more presentations of the GUI are identified, and templates are associated with portions of the trace. Each template has one or more defined inputs and a defined output. For each template of the plurality of templates, the portions of the traces are processed to automatically configure the template by specifying a procedure for providing values of inputs to the template via the GUI and obtaining a value of an output. The automated dialogue system is configured with the configured templates, thereby avoiding manual configuration of the dialogue system.

Abstract: A method for configuring an automated dialog system uses traces of interactions via a graphical user interface (GUI) for an application. Each trace includes interactions in the context of a plurality of presentations of the GUI. Elements of one or more presentations of the GUI are identified, and templates are associated with portions of the trace. Each template has one or more defined inputs and a defined output. For each template of the plurality of templates, the portions of the traces are processed to automatically configure the template by specifying a procedure for providing values of inputs to the template via the GUI and obtaining a value of an output. The automated dialog system is configured with the configured templates, thereby avoiding manual configuration of the dialog system.

Abstract: An interaction assistant conducts multiple turn interaction dialogs with a user in which context is maintained between turns, and the system manages the dialog to achieve an inferred goal for the user. The system includes a linguistic interface to a user and a parser for processing linguistic events from the user. A dialog manager of the system is configured to receive alternative outputs from the parser, and selecting an action and causing the action to be performed based on the received alternative outputs. The system further includes a dialog state for an interaction with the user, and the alternative outputs represent alternative transitions from a current dialog state to a next dialog state. The system further includes a storage for a plurality of templates, and wherein each dialog state is defined in terms of an interrelationship of one or more instances of the templates.

Abstract: An interaction assistant conducts multiple turn interaction dialogs with a user in which context is maintained between turns, and the system manages the dialog to achieve an inferred goal for the user. The system includes a linguistic interface to a user and a parser for processing linguistic events from the user. A dialog manager of the system is configured to receive alternative outputs from the parser, and selecting an action and causing the action to be performed based on the received alternative outputs. The system further includes a dialog state for an interaction with the user, and the alternative outputs represent alternative transitions from a current dialog state to a next dialog state. The system further includes a storage for a plurality of templates, and wherein each dialog state is defined in terms of an interrelationship of one or more instances of the templates.

Abstract: An automated assistant automatically recognizes speech, decode paraphrases in the recognized speech, performs an action or task based on the decoder output, and provides a response to the user. The response may be text or audio, and may be translated to include paraphrasing. The automatically recognized speech may be processed to determine partitions in the speech, which may be in turn processed to identify paraphrases in the partitions. A decoder may process an input utterance text to identify paraphrases content to include in a segment or sentence. The decoder may paraphrase the input utterance to make the utterance, updated with one or more paraphrases, more easily parsed by a parser. A translator may process a generated response to make the response sound more natural. The translator may replace content of the generated response with paraphrase content based on the state of the conversation with the user, including salience data.