MANAGING DIALOG DATA PROVIDERS

• US 20170032791A1
• Filed: 07/31/2015
• Published: 02/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Elson, David Kliger, Whipp, David P., Yehoshua, Shir Judith
• Granted Patent: US 10,255,921 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/22 Interactive procedures; Man-machine interfaces

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for managing dialogs. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a request associated with a task from a user device; submitting the request to each of a plurality of distinct data providers; receiving a plurality of suggested dialog responses from two or more of the data providers; scoring the one or more suggested dialog responses based on one or more scoring factors; determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring; and providing the determined dialog response to the user device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request associated with a task from a user device, wherein the request is associated with a voice input of a user of the user device;

determining a dialog associated with the task, wherein the dialog has a particular state;

submitting the request to each of a plurality of distinct data providers, wherein each data provider is associated with a distinct data model configured to interpret particular types of voice inputs;

receiving a plurality of suggested dialog responses from two or more of the data providers, wherein one or more of the data providers determine whether to change their respective suggested dialog responses in response to a suggested dialog response of another data provider;

scoring the one or more suggested dialog responses based on one or more scoring factors;

determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring; and

providing the determined dialog response to the user device; and

performing the task in response to completing the dialog.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

updating a state of a dialog based on the selected dialog response.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the received request is a voice input and wherein the method comprises converting the voice input request to text prior to submitting the request to the plurality of data providers.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining if the dialog requires further responses from the user device and in response to determining that no further responses are required, completing the task requested by the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each data provider independently analyzes the request according to the corresponding data model.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein in response to determining that none of the respective scores for the plurality of suggested dialog responses satisfy a threshold amount, synthesizing a response to provide to the user device to ascertain the user intent.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring includes disqualifying a suggested dialog response having a score that is lower than a threshold amount and also disqualifying all suggested dialog responses that refer to the suggested dialog response.

8. A system comprising:

one or more computers configured to perform operations comprising;

receiving a request associated with a task from a user device, wherein the request is associated with a voice input of a user of the user device;

determining a dialog associated with the task, wherein the dialog has a particular state;

submitting the request to each of a plurality of distinct data providers, wherein each data provider is associated with a distinct data model configured to interpret particular types of voice inputs;

receiving a plurality of suggested dialog responses from two or more of the data providers, wherein one or more of the data providers determine whether to change their respective suggested dialog responses in response to a suggested dialog response of another data provider;

scoring the one or more suggested dialog responses based on one or more scoring factors;

determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring;

providing the determined dialog response to the user device; and

performing the task in response to completing the dialog.

9. The system of claim 8, configured to perform operations comprising updating a state of a dialog based on the selected dialog response.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the received request is a voice input and wherein the method comprises converting the voice input request to text prior to submitting the request to the plurality of data providers.

11. The system of claim 8, further configured to perform operations comprising:

determining if the dialog requires further responses from the user device and in response to determining that no further responses are required, completing the task requested by the user.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein each data provider independently analyzes the request according to the corresponding data model.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein in response to determining that none of the respective scores for the plurality of suggested dialog responses satisfy a threshold amount, synthesizing a response to provide to the user device to ascertain the user intent.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring includes disqualifying a suggested dialog response having a score that is lower than a threshold amount and also disqualifying all suggested dialog responses that refer to the suggested dialog response.

15. One or more computer-readable storage media encoded with instructions that, when executed by one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request associated with a task from a user device, wherein the request is associated with a voice input of a user of the user device;

submitting the request to each of a plurality of distinct data providers, wherein each data provider is associated with a distinct data model configured to interpret particular types of voice inputs;

receiving a plurality of suggested dialog responses from two or more of the data providers, wherein one or more of the data providers determine whether to change their respective suggested dialog responses in response to a suggested dialog response of another data provider;

scoring the one or more suggested dialog responses based on one or more scoring factors;

determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring; and

providing the determined dialog response to the user device; and

performing the task in response to completing the dialog.

16. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, encoded with instructions that cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

updating a state of a dialog based on the selected dialog response.

17. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein the received request is a voice input and wherein the method comprises converting the voice input request to text prior to submitting the request to the plurality of data providers.

18. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, further encoded with instructions that cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

determining if the dialog requires further responses from the user device and in response to determining that no further responses are required, completing the task requested by the user.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein each data provider independently analyzes the request according to the corresponding data model.

20. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein determining a particular dialog response to provide to the user based on the scoring includes disqualifying a suggested dialog response having a score that is lower than a threshold amount and also disqualifying all suggested dialog responses that refer to the suggested dialog response.