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System and methods for a virtual assistant to manage and use context in a natural language dialog

  • US 10,418,032 B1
  • Filed: 05/24/2016
  • Issued: 09/17/2019
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2015
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of disambiguating interpretations, the method comprising:

  • receiving from a client a natural language query and an associated dialog history, the natural language query having an incomplete interpretation, the incomplete interpretation having at least one slot name whose value is ambiguous, the associated dialog history including one or more entries for history items, each history item including a previous interpretation and being associated with a named slot from the set comprising WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and HOW MANY, and each history item entry being associated with a slot value, saliency weight and sequence number;

    selecting, from the associated dialog history, a history item including a previous interpretation, the history item being selected, from the associated dialog history, based on the slot name of the history item, the number sequence of the history item and the saliency weight of the history item, such that the selected history item matches the natural language query having the incomplete interpretation for purposes of completing the at least one slot name whose value is ambiguous;

    merging the previous interpretation of the selected history item with the incomplete interpretation to form a merged interpretation;

    creating an updated dialog history by adding, to the associated dialog history, a new dialog history layer comprising the merged interpretation and at least one additional history item having a slot name, a slot value, a saliency weight, and a new sequence number; and

    sending the updated dialog history to the client.

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