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Natural Language Communication Between Human and Artificial Agents

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Agent Computing and Multi-Agent Systems (PRIMA 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4088))

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Abstract

The use of a complex form of language for the purpose of communication with others, to exchange ideas and thoughts, to express statements, wishes, goals, and plans, and to issue questions, commands and instructions, is one of the most important and distinguishing aspects humankind. If artificial agents want to participate in a co-operative way in human-agent interaction, they must be able – to a certain degree – to understand and interpret natural language, and translate commands and questions of a human user and map them onto a suitable set of their own primitive actions. In this paper, we outline a general framework and architecture for the development of natural language interfaces for artificial agents. We focus in this paper on task-related communication, in a scenario where the artificial agent performs actions in a co-operative work setting with human partners, who serve as instructors or supervisors. The main aim of this research is to provide a consistent and coherent formal framework for the representation of actions, which can be used for planning, reasoning, and action execution by the artificial agent, and at the same time can serve as a basis for analyzing and generating verbal expressions, i.e. commands, instructions and queries, issued by the human user. The suggested framework is derived from formal methods in knowledge representation, in particular description logics, and involves semantic and ontological descriptive elements taken from linguistics, computer science, and philosophy. Several prototypical agent systems have been developed based on this framework, including simulated agents like an interior design system and a household robot, and a speech controlled toy car as example of a physical agent.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba, E2-412 EITC Building, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2, Canada

    Christel Kemke

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  1. Christel Kemke
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information Processing, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100080, Beijing

    Zhong-Zhi Shi

  2. Asian Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 4, 12120, Klong Luang, Pathumthani, Thailand

    Ramakoti Sadananda

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kemke, C. (2006). Natural Language Communication Between Human and Artificial Agents. In: Shi, ZZ., Sadananda, R. (eds) Agent Computing and Multi-Agent Systems. PRIMA 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4088. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11802372_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11802372_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-36707-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36860-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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