Method of handling frequently asked questions in a natural language dialog service
View Patent ↗A voice-enabled help desk service is disclosed. The service comprises an automatic speech recognition module for recognizing speech from a user, a spoken language understanding module for understanding the output from the automatic speech recognition module, a dialog management module for generating a response to speech from the user, a natural voices text-to-speech synthesis module for synthesizing speech to generate the response to the user, and a frequently asked questions module. The frequently asked questions module handles frequently asked questions from the user by changing voices and providing predetermined prompts to answer frequently asked questions.
1. A method comprising:
receiving an utterance, in a turn-based dialog, from a user;
selecting, via a processor, a prompt type to convey information to the user in response to the utterance, to yield a selected prompt type;
developing, via a processor, a back story for each pre-synthesized voice in a plurality of pre-synthesized voices;
retrieving, based on the selected prompt type, a pre-synthesized voice from the plurality of pre-synthesized voices, where the prompt type is associated with a specific pre-synthesized voice in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices;
generating a prompt, as part of the turn-based dialog, by inputting the back story, a dialog history, the selected prompt type, and a set of logical predicates to an interpreter tuple; and
replying to the utterance in the turn-based dialog via the prompt using the pre-synthesized voice.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the back story is developed based on a set of personality traits associated with each pre-synthesized voice in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the prompt type is one of a pricing, a hint, a demonstration, a question, an example, an instruction, and a command.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting the prompt type further comprises:
performing an analysis to determine which prompt type of a plurality of prompt types is most likely to be understood by the turn-based dialog, to yield a highest probability prompt type; and
selecting the highest probability prompt type as the prompt type.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein there are eight pre-synthesized voices in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices.
6. A system, comprising:
a processor; and
a computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, perform operations comprising:
receiving an utterance, in a turn-based dialog, from a user;
selecting a prompt type to convey information to the user in response to the utterance, to yield a selected prompt type;
developing, via the processor, a back story for each pre-synthesized voice in a plurality of pre-synthesized voices;
retrieving, based on the selected prompt type, a pre-synthesized voice from the plurality of pre-synthesized voices, where the prompt type is associated with a specific pre-synthesized voice in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices; and
generating a prompt, as part of the turn-based dialog, by inputting the back story, a dialog history, the selected prompt type, and a set of logical predicates to an interpreter tuple; and
replying to the utterance in the turn-based dialog via the prompt using the pre-synthesized voice.
7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the back story is developed based on a set of personality traits associated with each pre-synthesized voice in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices.
8. The system of claim 6 , wherein the prompt type comprises one of a pricing, a hint, a demonstration, a question, an example, an instruction, and a command.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein there are eight pre-synthesized voices in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices.
10. The system of claim 6 , wherein selecting the prompt type further comprises:
performing an analysis to determine which prompt type in a plurality of prompt types is most likely to be understood by the turn-based dialog, to yield a highest probability prompt type; and
selecting the highest probability prompt type as the prompt type.
11. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
receiving an utterance, in a turn-based dialog, from a user;
selecting a prompt type to convey information to the user in response to the utterance, to yield a selected prompt type;
developing, via the computing device, a back story for each pre-synthesized voice in a plurality of pre-synthesized voices;
retrieving, based on the selected prompt type, a pre-synthesized voice from the plurality of pre-synthesized voices, where the prompt type is associated with a specific pre-synthesized voice in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices; and
generating a prompt, as part of the turn-based dialog, by inputting the back story, a dialog history, the selected prompt type, and a set of logical predicates to an interpreter tuple; and
replying to the utterance in the turn-based dialog via the prompt using the pre-synthesized voice.
12. The computer-readable storage device of claim 11 , wherein the back story is developed based on a set of personality traits associated with each pre-synthesized voice in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices.
13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 11 , wherein the prompt type comprises one of a pricing, a hint, a demonstration, a question, an example, an instruction, and a command.
14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 11 , wherein selecting the prompt type further comprises:
performing an analysis to determine which prompt type of a plurality of prompt types is most likely to be understood by the turn-based dialog, to yield a highest probability prompt type; and
selecting the highest probability prompt type as the prompt type.
15. The computer-readable storage device of claim 11 , wherein there are eight pre-synthesized voices in the plurality of pre-synthesized voices.