METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERATING DIALOGUE MANAGERS WITH DIVERSIFIED DIALOGUE ACTS

• US 20100063823A1
• Filed: 09/09/2008
• Published: 03/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
• Inventors: Lee, Ching-Hsien, Wu, Hsu-Chih
• Granted Patent: US 8,285,550 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling

Abstract

A method to generate dialogue manager (DM) is provided, in which a plurality DMs with the same purpose but having different dialogue acts is automatically generated according to a DM designed by a designer. An automatic aiding tool facilitates the design of a dialogue flow and the adjustment of DM rules, and also helps a system designer to find out potential problems in the original DM. The method adopts the current DM combined with a user simulation technique and further employs a specially designed scoring function, so as to automatically generate a plurality of new DMs. The new DMs achieve the same dialogue purpose as the original DM, but differ from the original DM in system acts and responses during the dialogue process. The dialogue flow of the dialogue system is enhanced, and meanwhile, the design and improvement of the DM are also accelerated.

Claims

1. A system for generating dialogue managers (DMs) with diversified dialogue acts, the system comprising:

a training module, for receiving an original DM and randomly generating a plurality of first DMs in the beginning; and

an user simulation module, for simulating user acts in response to the dialogue acts from each of the first DMs, and generating a plurality of dialogue logs according to the dialogues between the dialogue acts and the simulated user acts, wherein the training module adjusts the first DMs according to the dialogue logs in order to generate a plurality of second DMs.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the training module comprises an evaluation module, for evaluating a degree of similarity between dialogue purposes of the original DM and each of the first DMs or the second DMs.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a language understanding module and a language generation module for dialogue interactions between a DM module and the user simulation module.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the user simulation module comprises a user DM for simulating user acts when the user makes a dialogue with the dialogue system.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of dialogue interactions between the first DMs and the user simulation module are iterated for a plurality of times for generating the plurality of second DMs.

6. The system of claim 1, the training module further comprising:

a rule generation module, randomly modifies a plurality of rules within the original DM to generate the plurality of first DMs; and

an evaluation module, derives a evaluate score of each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs by analysing the dialogue logs, wherein the rule generation module adaptively generates a plurality of derived new DMs based on the evaluate score of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the rule generation module uses evolutionary computation to adaptively generate the at least one derived new DMs based on the evaluation score of each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the evolutionary computation comprises evolutionary operators as reproduction, mutation, or crossover.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the evaluation module maps each of the rules within the original DM and the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs to a corresponding dialogue history respectively, obtains a state diagram based on the corresponding dialogue history of each of the DMs, and compares the state diagram of each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs with the state diagram of the original DM to derive the evaluate score of each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the evaluation module compares each edge of the state diagram of each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs with each edge of the state diagram of the original DM to derive the evaluate score corresponding to each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the evaluation module derives a ratio of a complete dialogue edges set to all edges in the state diagram as the evaluate score of each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the DM comprises at least one control file.

13. A method for generating a dialogue manager (DM) with diversified dialogue acts, comprising:

generating a plurality of first DMs based on a original DM;

pre-setting the DMs for simulating user act, and generating at least one corresponding dialogue log respectively to each of the plurality of first DMs through a user simulation module;

deriving a evaluate score of the each of the plurality of first DMs by analyzing the dialogue log; and

generating a plurality of second DMs.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein after multiple times iteration performed, a difference between the dialogue purpose of the plurality of second DMs and the dialogue purpose of the corresponding original DM is controlled under a predetermined value.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein deriving the evaluate score of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs comprising:

mapping rules within the original DM and the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs to a corresponding dialogue history respectively,

obtaining a state diagram based on a corresponding dialogue status of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs, and

comparing the state diagram of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs with the state diagram of the original DM to derive the evaluate score.

16. The method of claim 13, comparing each edge of the state diagram of the each of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs with each edge of the state diagram of the original DM to derive the evaluate score.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the evaluate score is a ratio of a complete dialogue edges set to all edges in the state diagrams of the plurality of first DMs or the plurality of second DMs.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the DM comprises at least one control file.