This document discusses the basics of language understanding and chatbots. It covers how language begins with shared concepts and references between people. It also discusses how conversations have implicit rules and coordination of meaning. The document then discusses the current state of chatbots, including purposeless mimicry agents, intention-based agents, and conversational agents. It provides some facts about how users interact with bots, including preferences for user interface controls over text or voice, and how search capabilities can benefit bots. The document stresses starting simple with bots and considering business needs over passing conversational tests.

1. 1
aOS Moscow
9/7/2019
Bots and Language
understanding
Rick Van Rousselt
Your
picture

2. ◦ THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS
2
Web
Sharesoft
Platinum
Silver
Diamond

3. Chatbots have
been around for a
long time!

8. Once in a Decade Opportunity

25. Basics

26. 1
2 3
Shared Reference
Gärdenfors (2014)

27. Language begins with
the naming of items in
the world
A concept is shared between
persons and a word is used to
name that concept

28. Language is more then just
words

29. perception concept action
Our brains link shared concepts to personal emotions and
experiences
• If somebody says “rabbit then we think about linked experiences
• Between each other we understand each other because we share the
same experiences

30. We negotiate about language and meaning while we are having the
conversation
Coordination
of meaning
Coordination of experience
Instruction
Break
Break
Confirmation
Confirmation

31. We negotiate about language and meaning while we are having the
conversation
A fishing rod is
a stick with a
string and a
hook
You can catch a fish with a
fishing rod
Get me some fish
Break
Break
Confirmation
Confirmation

32. Maxim of Quantity: Say only what is not implied.
Yes: “Bring me the block.”
No: “Bring me the block by transporting it to my
location.”
Conversations have their own rules
Grice's Maxims

33. Conversations have their own rules
Maxim of Quality: Say only things that are true.
Yes: “I hate carrying blocks.”
No: “I love carrying blocks, especially when they
are covered in fire ants.”
Grice's Maxims

34. Conversations have their own rules
Maxim of Relevance: Say only things that matter.
Yes: “Bring me the block.”
No: “Bring me the block and birds sing.”
Grice's Maxims

35. Conversations have their own rules
Maxim of Manner: Speak in a way that can be easily
understood.
Yes: “Bring me the block.”
No: “Use personal physical force to levitate the block and
transport it to me.”
Grice's Maxims

36. The way you say it… is equally important
• You know. I don’t. [So don’t ask me.]
• You know I don’t. [You know that I don’t.]

39. With great
power comes great responsibility

40. Not: Should I build a bot
But
What is the outcome I want for users of my
product or service?

41. What is the business outcome you want to drive?
- Customer retention
- Customer service
- Ex: helping a user until a live person is
available

42. Is a
conversation
al chatbot
the best
medium for
your
outcome?
 Vacation booking site?
 Recipe's site?

43. Does your idea try to replace tasks that people
love doing?
- Ex: Plan a trip

44. Is the cost for using your
chatbot-powered product or
service less than the perceived
value?
 Ex: Shopping list

46. Start easy

47. The current state of chatbots

48. Purposeless mimicry agents

49. Purposeless mimicry agents
- Psychologist from the ’60s
- Illusion of conversations
- Lot’s of data and deep learning
- Nowadays used mainly for automatic
translations

50. Recurrent neural network encoding the phrase “How are you?” The result is the vector h3.

51. Intention-based agents

52. Intention-based agents
- Present
- Language translated to commands
- Alexa, Siri, Cortana
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)

53. Intents
 Task or action a user wants to perform => verbs
 Ex: What's the weather like in Moscow?

54. Entities
 Information relevant to the intent => Nouns
 Ex: What's the weather like in Moscow?

55. Conversational agents

56. Conversation Agents
- Future
- Multi-turn conversations
- Dialog manager

57. Bot Facts

58. Fact #1:
Users love
buttons
When given the choice of
rich controls, text and voice,
user will choose:
UI Controls first
Text second
Voice third, only if options
above aren’t possible (e.g.
Driving a car)

59. Fact #2: Users never say things the way you expect
As you model your NLP, make sure you’re being realistic

60. Fact #3: Search
can do
wonders for
bots
• QnAMaker.ai:
• Super low friction way of creating a Q&A
bot
• Built in web and document crawler: Parses
data and builds the QnA easily
• Not great for too many records
• Not great for deep level customization of
the experience
• Azure Search:
• Can work with millions of records like a
breeze
• Works with different document formats
and data sources
• Takes more effort to prepare/code/fine-
tune

61. Fact #4: Not all bots need to
have conversations
• Sometimes buttons do everything you need.
• Avoid the engineer’s urge to complicate simple things
• Your business requirement is NOT to
pass the Turing Test: It is to solve your
user’s problem!

62. 11.11.2017

63. Q&A Maker Demo

65. New botbuilder
tools

66. Chatdown
• Transcript generator to generate mock transcripts
• Helps non-devs to understand the flow
• Helps define a “Happy Path”

67. Manage bot resources
• MsBot: Create a .bot file that links up different
services together
• LuisGen: Generate Typescript and C# classes
from a Luis export
• Luis + QnAMaker : manage LUIS.AI and QnA
Maker
• Dispatch: integrate multiple LUIS Apps and
QnA Services

68. Conversational Commerce

70. Brands need to seriously consider:
How will customers talk to our
brand? And, who are they talking
to?
Aiden Livingston

72. Marketers craft brand narratives, creative
writers plot a storyline, and copywriters make
micro-copy magical.
Conversation designers are a hybrid of all
three.

73. Rick Van Rousselt
CTO Advantive Belgium
Office Apps and Services MVP
BIWUG Board Member
Email : rick.van.rousselt@advantive.be
rickvanrousselt
https://www.rickvanrousselt.com
jobs@advantive.be