Active Input Elicitation by Intelligent Automated Assistant

• US 20130110518A1
• Filed: 12/21/2012
• Published: 05/02/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Gruber, Thomas Robert, Cheyer, Adam John, Guzzoni, Didier Rene, Brigham, Christopher Dean, Giuli, Richard Donald, Bastea-Forte, Marcello, Saddler, Harry Joseph
• Granted Patent: US 8,670,979 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/00 Instruments specially adapted for vehicles; Arrangement of instruments in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3344 using natural language analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/279 Recognition of textual entities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/006 based on simulated virtual individual or collective life forms, e.g. social simulations or particle swarm optimisation [PSO]
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/041 Abduction
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/02 Methods for producing synthetic speech; Speech synthesisers
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1815 Semantic context, e.g. disambiguation of the recognition hypotheses based on word meaning
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/183 using context dependencies, e.g. language models
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 : Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/06 : Transformation of speech into a non-audible representation, e.g. speech visualisation or speech processing for tactile aids G10L15/26 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6091 : including a wireless interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/7243 : with interactive means for internal management of messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72448 : with means for adapting the functionality of the device according to specific conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72484 : wherein functions are triggered by incoming communication events

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer readable storage medium related to operating an intelligent automated assistant are disclosed. A user request is received through a conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, the user request including at least a speech input received from a user. One or more candidate domains relevant to the user request are identified from a plurality of predefined domains, where each predefined domain presents a respective area of service offered by the intelligent automated assistant, and the identifying is based on respective degrees of match between words derived from the user request and words representing vocabulary and entities associated with each predefined domain. Feedback is provided to the user through the conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, where the feedback presents a paraphrase of the user request and elicits additional input from the user to specify one or more parameters associated with a particular candidate domain.

Claims

1. A method for operating an intelligent automated assistant, comprising:

at an electronic device comprising a processor and memory storing instructions for execution by the processor;

receiving a user request through a conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, the user request comprising at least a speech input received from a user;

identifying one or more candidate domains relevant to the user request from a plurality of predefined domains, wherein each predefined domain presents a respective area of service offered by the intelligent automated assistant, and wherein the identifying is based on respective degrees of match between words derived from the user request and words representing vocabulary and entities associated with each predefined domain; and

providing feedback to the user through the conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, wherein the feedback presents a paraphrase of the user request and elicits additional input from the user to specify one or more parameters associated with a particular candidate domain.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on follow-up steps in respective task flows associated with the one or more candidate domains.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on respective parameters associated with the one or more candidate domains.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on alternative interpretations of the speech input provided by a language interpretation component of the intelligent automated assistant.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user request further includes context information and the feedback offers suggestions based on the context information.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

proactively providing a suggestion to the user after gathering user input under a first domain, wherein the suggestion offers to perform a task under a second domain related to the first domain.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to elicitation of the additional input, receiving a first additional input from the user; and

updating the user request based on the first additional input.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the paraphrase of the user request rephrases at least some of the words derived from the user request with other words associated with the one or more candidate domains.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a respective predefined domain is defined by a plurality of concepts and one or more relations relating the concepts.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein a respective concept is associated with at least one task flow operationalizing a respective task.

11. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving a user request through a conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, the user request comprising at least a speech input received from a user;

identifying one or more candidate domains relevant to the user request from a plurality of predefined domains, wherein each predefined domain presents a respective area of service offered by the intelligent automated assistant, and wherein the identifying is based on respective degrees of match between words derived from the user request and words representing vocabulary and entities associated with each predefined domain; and

providing feedback to the user through the conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, wherein the feedback presents a paraphrase of the user request and elicits additional input from the user to specify one or more parameters associated with a particular candidate domain.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on follow-up steps in respective task flows associated with the one or more candidate domains.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on respective parameters associated with the one or more candidate domains.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on alternative interpretations of the speech input provided by a language interpretation component of the intelligent automated assistant.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the user request further includes context information and the feedback offers suggestions based on the context information.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise:

proactively providing a suggestion to the user after gathering user input under a first domain, wherein the suggestion offers to perform a task under a second domain related to the first domain.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise:

in response to elicitation of the additional input, receiving a first additional input from the user; and

updating the user request based on the first additional input.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the paraphrase of the user request rephrases at least some of the words derived from the user request with other words associated with the one or more candidate domains.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein a respective predefined domain is defined by a plurality of concepts and one or more relations relating the concepts.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein a respective concept is associated with at least one task flow operationalizing a respective task.

21. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions, the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

receiving a user request through a conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, the user request comprising at least a speech input received from a user;

identifying one or more candidate domains relevant to the user request from a plurality of predefined domains, wherein each predefined domain presents a respective area of service offered by the intelligent automated assistant, and wherein the identifying is based on respective degrees of match between words derived from the user request and words representing vocabulary and entities associated with each predefined domain; and

providing feedback to the user through the conversation interface of the intelligent automated assistant, wherein the feedback presents a paraphrase of the user request and elicits additional input from the user to specify one or more parameters associated with a particular candidate domain.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on follow-up steps in respective task flows associated with the one or more candidate domains.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on respective parameters associated with the one or more candidate domains.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein the feedback offers suggestions based on alternative interpretations of the speech input provided by a language interpretation component of the intelligent automated assistant.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the user request further includes context information and the feedback offers suggestions based on the context information.

26. The system of claim 21, wherein the operations further comprise:

proactively providing a suggestion to the user after gathering user input under a first domain, wherein the suggestion offers to perform a task under a second domain related to the first domain.

27. The system of claim 21, wherein the operations further comprise:

in response to elicitation of the additional input, receiving a first additional input from the user; and

updating the user request based on the first additional input.

28. The system of claim 21, wherein the paraphrase of the user request rephrases at least some of the words derived from the user request with other words associated with the one or more candidate domains.

29. The system of claim 21, wherein a respective predefined domain is defined by a plurality of concepts and one or more relations relating the concepts.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein a respective concept is associated with at least one task flow operationalizing a respective task.