Dialogue systems at KTH

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Dialogue systems at KTH
Olga
Waxholm
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The August project
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Key features of the August system

• Part of the Stockholm Cultural Capital of Europe
  '98 program
• Swedish spoken dialogue system with an animated
  agent
• Named after the 19th century author August
  Strindberg
• Built with speech technology components
  developed at TMH
• Designed to be easily expanded and reconfigured
• Communicates using synthetic speech, facial
  expressions, maps, tables and a thought
  balloon
• Used to collect spontaneous speech data

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The topics of the August system

• Stockholm (events and general information)
• Yellow pages
• KTH and speech technology
• August Strindberg
• Greetings and social utterances
• Comments about the system capabilities and the
  discourse

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A sample video of the system environment
There are 24,000 islands in the Stockholm
archipelago
Can you see me?
We are now in the center of Stockholm
Hello August
Hello!
How are you today?
Excellent as always!
What can I ask about?
I can tell you about restaurants in Stockholm
Can you recommend a restaurant in the
neighborhood
There are over 700 restaurants in Stockholm
Is there one close by?
You must specify a street
Are there any restaurants on Blekingegatan?
The information is shown on the map
Where are we?
But we are here!
Where?
I did not understand that!
Where are we?
But we are here!
Are we in Kulturhuset?
My life cannot be measured in terms of days and
years!
My life cannot be measured in terms of days and
years!
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The August system
What is your name?
I call myself Strindberg, but I dont really
have a surname
When were you born?
Strindberg was born in 1849
What do you do for a living?
I can answer questions about Strindberg, KTH and
Stockholm
How many people live in Stockholm?
Over a million people live in the Stockholm area
Do you like it here?
People who live in glass houses should not throw
stones
Yes, that was a smart thing to say!
I come from the department of Speech, Music and
Hearing
The Royal Institute of Technology!
The information is shown on the map
Thank you!
You are welcome!
Good bye!
Perhaps we will meet soon again!
Yes, it might be that we will!
Strindberg was married three times!
Strindberg was married three times!
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The AdApt system

• Multimodal conversational dialogue system
• System features an animated agent and an
  interactive map in an apartment domain
• Developed by researchers from Centre for Speech
  Technology (KTH) and Telia Research
• (Linda Bell, Johan Boye, Rolf Carlson, Jens
  Edlund, David House, Joakim Gustafson and Mats
  Wirén)

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The Adapt user interface
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The AdApt project presented in a popular science
program broadcasted on Swedish national
television, May 2000



Animated faces are appearing everywhere
They offer us advice on stock exchange and there
are virtual news anchors
None of them understand what we say
At the Centre for Speech Technology at the Royal
Institute of Technology
researchers are developing animated agents that
will be able to engage in dialogues
The animated agent Urban will be able to pursue
a freer sort of conversation
My name is Urban. What can I do for you? Well,
what can you do?
I can tell you about available apartments in
downtown Stockholm
I'd like to look at two-room apartments on the
south side of town with a balcony and a
fireplace
I have information about five such apartments,
and I now show their locations on the map
Thank you very much
This is fun, but I could just as well access
this information through a text-based
interface
What is the purpose of speaking computer?
The same information can be accessed, but
perhaps more efficiently
The system can also compare different
apartments
I think speaking computers will be important in
the future
You don't need the keyboard
Disabled people can use them and inexperienced
computer users
What are the difficulties involved?
Our goal is to build a system that can handle a
more complex sort of dialogue
A lot of problems remain to be solved...
... many things in the dialogue can go
wrong misunderstandings occur
We are now collecting data to see how people
speak to such a computer
...to try to improve the performance of future
systems
Do people speak about anything just because it
is a face they are talking to?
We get a sense of trust, since we believe the
animated agent has human capabilities
This is something we have observed in our data -
people like to socialize with Urban and they
enjoy talking to him about this and that.
And once they have been developed, what do you
think their functions will be?
They will be used for a wide range of things
They can be used as personal assistants and
there is a commercial potential
We will probably see them selling things. When
can we meet Urban again
Stockholm Technical museum, where he will be
part of an exhibition shown this summer
Urban will make a guest appearance there
And you can talk to him
Do you know what the next part of the program
will be about?
Yes, about magnifying glasses that the Vikings
used a thousand years ago
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Hello my name is Urban and I can tell you about
nice apartments in downtown Stockholm
Hi Urban..eh..are there any available apartments
.. around here
How many rooms do you want
I want a three room apartment..eh..it would be
nice with an older one
There are five apartments in the shaded area
Well this apartment on Nybrogatan, can you tell
me a little bit more about it
The blue apartment was built in 1920. It has a
tiled stove and a parquette floor
Alright and..eh..the yellow apartment
The yellow building was constructed in 1883
Does this apartment also have tiled stoves?
Im sorry but I cant answer that question
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