boosting a chatterbot understanding with a weighted...

OverviewPrevious Work

Our ContributionSummary

Boosting a Chatterbot Understanding with aWeighted Filtered-Popping Network Parser

Javier M. Sastre1,2,3 Jorge Sastre3 Javier García4

1IGM, Université Paris-Est2Grup Transducens, DLSI, Universitat d’Alacant

3iTEAM, Universitat Politècnica de València4Telefónica I+D

4th Language & Technology Conference

Javier M. Sastre, Jorge Sastre, Javier García Boosting a Chatterbot Understanding with a WFPN Parser



The MovistarBotSupported Services

The MovistarBot

Conversational agent (chatterbot)

Developed in collaboration with TelefónicaR&D

Accessible through MSN Messenger

Dialog based on short text messages inSpanish

Sells mobile services

Provides entertaining conversation

Current status: private beta





Sending SMSs

Spanish sentence

quisiera enviar unmensaje

me gustaría enviar unmensaje al móvil 555

envía hola Paco al 555

mándame este mensajeal 555: hola Paco

etc.

Literal translation

I would like to send amessage

I would like to send amessage to the mobile 555

send hello Paco to the 555

send (for me) this messageto the 555: hello Paco

etc.





Searching for Downloads

Spanish sentence

¿qué juegos tienes?

me gustaría bajarme elPacman

quiero canciones deMichael Jackson

enséñame las fotos quetengas de gatos

etc.

Literal translation

which games do you have?

I would like to download thePacman (game)

I want songs of MichaelJackson

show me the photos thatyou have of cats

etc.





Downloading

Spanish sentence

descárgame elcontenido 7

el 7 es el contenido quequiero

etc.

Literal translation

download (for me) thecontent 7

the 7 is the content that Iwant

etc.





Searching for Alerts

Spanish sentence

muéstrame las alertas

enséñame las alertas defútbol

¿qué alertas de fútboltienes?

quiero ver las alertasque tengas disponiblesde fútbol

etc.

Literal translation

show me the alerts

show me the alerts ofsoccer

¿which alerts of soccer doyou have?

I want to see the alerts youhave available of soccer

etc.





Subscribing to Alerts

Spanish sentence

quiero suscribirme a la 7

alta alerta 7

etc.

Literal translation

I want to subscribe to the 7

subscribe alert 7

etc.





Information Service

Spanish sentence

¿cómo puedo ver la teleen mi móvil?

¿qué es la tarifa planade música?

quiero recargar mitarjeta

etc.

Literal translation

how can I watch TV in mymobile?

what is the flat fee ofmusic?

I want to recharge my (SIM)card

etc.




Base Robot

The Base Robot

Developed by Telefónica R&D

Based on AIML [Wallace, 2004]

Command-based service requests (e.g.: sms phonemessage)

Keyword-based recognition of requests in Spanish redirectto command use

Keyword-based general conversation rules forentertainment




The Robot ExtensionsLinguistic DataComputer Programs

The Robot Extensions

Developed by us

Spanish-to-command translation of request sentences

Simplification of unrecognized sentences: to infinitive formDivided into two parts:

linguistic data→ grammars & dictionariescomputer programs→ NLP engine & tools





Grammars

Local-grammars [Gross, 1997]: exact sentence recognitionRecursive transition networks (RTNs) [Woods, 1970] withoutput:

XML tags determining the service and argumentsWeights determining the best interpretation

Powerful linguistic operators: <V+Trans_msg:Y2:Y3>

RTNs are intuitive graphical objects

RTNs can be reused by other RTNs

RTNs can be constructed with the Unitex (open-source)system [Paumier, 2006]





A Local-Grammar Example

<aplicación.N>

<juego.N>

<software.N>

<videojuego.N>

<canción.N>

<música.N>

<tono.N>

<dibujo.N>

<imagen.N>

<foto.N>

<logotipo.N>

<juegos> </juegos>

<musica> </musica>

<fotos>

</fotos>

<archivo.N>

<fichero.N>de

mp3

java

<E>

de

en

<fondo.N> de<escritorio.N>

<pantalla.N>

ocio

recreo





The Dictionary

Unitex’s DELAF Spanish dictionaryOpen-source (LGPLLR licensed)Description of inflected formsMore than 600,000 entries

Entry example:envía,enviar.V+Trans_msg:3Ps:2Ys

Addition of new entries

Addition of new semantic classes





Computer Programs

Application of RTNs based on a filtered-popping network(FPN) parser [Sastre, 2009a]

Case & diacritic mark insensitiveness

Automatic grammar weighting procedureDictionary tools for:

Dictionary compression and decompression [Revuz, 1992]Linguistic-aware entry extraction:<V+Trans_msg>Linguistic-aware edition of semantic classes:+Trans_msg <enviar.V>+<mandar.V>+ etc.





Implementation Details

C++ standard & Standard Template Library

Robust code

Developed with Eclipse CDT & g++

Open-source

*nix & Windows compatible

Tomcat servlet interfacing the engine over the Internet

Local use by single user

Remote use by multiple users





System Workflow

The user types a sentence in his Messenger

The NLP engine translates or simplifies itThe chatterbot applies its own AIML rules:

complete service requests→ launch serviceincomplete service request→ ask for missingargumentsnot a service request→ apply generalconversation rules

Robot & NLP engine independence





Performance

Testing machine: GNU/Linux Debian laptop, Intel PentiumCentrino 2GHz, 2GB RAM

First version (only SMS service and no weights): 2000sentences per second

Last version: 200 sentences per second

Increasing global ambiguity penalizes performance

Possible solution: top-ranked-only interpretation extractor




Summary

Robust & powerful NLP engine

Open-source

Exact analysis of texts

Argument extraction

Successfully applied to the MovistarBot use case

Easy to integrate with other applications

Expected to suit larger applications with a top-ranked-onlyinterpretation extractor




References I

Blanco, X., 2000.Les dictionnaires électroniques de l’espagnol (DELASs etDELACs).Lingvisticæ Investigationes, 23(2):201–218.

Gross, M., 1997.The construction of local grammars.In Emmanuel Roche and Yves Schabes (eds.), Finite-StateLanguage Processing. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press,pages 329–352.




References II

Paumier, S., 2006.Unitex 1.2 User Manual .Université de Marne-la-Vallée.http://www-igm.univ-mlv.fr/ unitex/Unitex-Manual.pdf .

Revuz, D., 1992.Minimisation of acyclic deterministic automata in lineartime.Theoretical Computer Science, 92(1):181–189.




References III

Sastre, J. M., 2009a.Efficient parsing using filtered-popping recursive transitionnetworks.Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5642:241–244.

Wallace, R., 2004.The elements of AIML style. ALICE AI Foundation.http://www.alicebot.org .

Woods, W. A., 1970.Transition network grammars for natural language analysis.Communications of the ACM, 13(10):591–606.


http://www.alicebot.org

boosting a chatterbot understanding with a weighted...

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