IP Library Granted Patent US 10,402,495
Granted Patent B1
US 10,402,495 · App. 15/694,031 · Granted Sep 3, 2019

Abstractive sentence summarization

Inventors: Alexander Matthew Rush (Cambridge, MA); Sumit Chopra (Jersey City, NJ); Jason Edward Weston (New York, NY)
Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
G06F17/2785G10L15/197G10L25/30
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 10,402,495
App. No.
15/694,031
Granted
Sep 3, 2019
Kind
B1
Abstract

In one embodiment, a sequence of input words is received. Each of the input words is encoded as an indicator vector, wherein a sequence of the indicator vectors captures features of the sequence of input words. The sequence of the indicator vectors is then mapped to a distribution of a contextual probability of a first output word in a sequence of output words. For each subsequent output word, the sequence of the indicator vectors is encoded with a context, wherein the context comprises a previously mapped contextual probability distribution of a fixed window of previous output words; and the encoded sequence of the indicator vectors and the context is mapped to the distribution of the contextual probability of the subsequent output word. Finally, a condensed summary is generated using a decoder by maximizing the contextual probability of each of the output words.

Claims (41)

1. A method comprising, by one or more computer server devices:

receiving an input sentence comprising a sequence of input words, wherein a set of words in a vocabulary comprises the input words;

encoding each of the input words as an indicator vector, wherein the indicator vector captures features of the input word and a sequence of the indicator vectors captures features of the sequence of the input words;

mapping, using a neural network language model, the sequence of the indicator vectors to a distribution of a contextual probability of a first output word in a sequence of output words, wherein the set of words in the vocabulary comprises the output words;

for each of one or more next output words of the sequence of output words:

encoding the sequence of the indicator vectors with a context, wherein the context comprises a previously mapped contextual probability distribution of a fixed window of previous ones of the output words; and

mapping the encoded sequence of the indicator vectors and the context to the distribution of the contextual probability of the next output word; and

generating a condensed summary using a decoder by maximizing the contextual probability of each of the output words in the sequence of the output words.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the encoding comprises using an attention-based encoder which is used to find a latent soft alignment between the indicator vectors and the context, and wherein the latent soft alignment points to a position in the sequence of the indicator vectors where a block of highly relevant information for generating the summary is concentrated.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a number of the output words in the sequence of the output words is pre-determined.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the decoder is a Viterbi decoder that finds an exact solution by searching through an entire distribution of the contextual probability.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the decoder is a beam search decoder that finds an approximate solution by searching through a limited distribution of the contextual probability.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising modifying a scoring function to find extractive word matches from the input sentences by directly estimating the contextual probability using a log-linear model.

7. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

receive an input sentence comprising a sequence of input words, wherein a set of words in a vocabulary comprises the input words;

encode each of the input words as an indicator vector, wherein the indicator vector captures features of the input word and a sequence of the indicator vectors captures features of the sequence of the input words;

map, using a neural network language model, the sequence of the indicator vectors to a distribution of a contextual probability of a first output word in a sequence of output words, wherein the set of words in the vocabulary comprises the output words;

for each of one or more next output words of the sequence of output words:

encode the sequence of the indicator vectors with a context, wherein the context comprises a previously mapped contextual probability distribution of a fixed window of previous ones of the output words; and

map the encoded sequence of the indicator vectors and the context to the distribution of the contextual probability of the next output word; and

generate a condensed summary using a decoder by maximizing the contextual probability of each of the output words in the sequence of the output words.

8. The media of claim 7 , wherein the encoding comprises using an attention-based encoder which is used to find a latent soft alignment between the indicator vectors and the context, and wherein the latent soft alignment points to a position in the sequence of the indicator vectors where a block of highly relevant information for generating the summary is concentrated.

9. The media of claim 7 , wherein a number of the output words in the sequence of the output words is pre-determined.

10. The media of claim 7 , wherein the decoder is a Viterbi decoder that finds an exact solution by searching through an entire distribution of the contextual probability.

11. The media of claim 7 , wherein the decoder is a beam search decoder that finds an approximate solution by searching through a limited distribution of the contextual probability.

12. The media of claim 7 , further embodying software that is operable when executed to:

modify a scoring function to find extractive word matches from the input sentences by directly estimating the contextual probability using a log-linear model.

13. A system comprising: one or more processors; and a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors being operable when executing the instructions to:

receive an input sentence comprising a sequence of input words, wherein a set of words in a vocabulary comprises the input words;

encode each of the input words as an indicator vector, wherein the indicator vector captures features of the input word and a sequence of the indicator vectors captures features of the sequence of the input words;

map, using a neural network language model, the sequence of the indicator vectors to a distribution of a contextual probability of a first output word in a sequence of output words, wherein the set of words in the vocabulary comprises the output words;

for each of one or more next output words of the sequence of output words:

encode the sequence of the indicator vectors with a context, wherein the context comprises a previously mapped contextual probability distribution of a fixed window of previous ones of the output words; and

map the encoded sequence of the indicator vectors and the context to the distribution of the contextual probability of the next output word; and

generate a condensed summary using a decoder by maximizing the contextual probability of each of the output words in the sequence of the output words.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the encoding comprises using an attention-based encoder which is used to find a latent soft alignment between the indicator vectors and the context, and wherein the latent soft alignment points to a position in the sequence of the indicator vectors where a block of highly relevant information for generating the summary is concentrated.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein a number of the output words in the sequence of the output words is pre-determined.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein the decoder is a Viterbi decoder that finds an exact solution by searching through an entire distribution of the contextual probability.

17. The system of claim 13 , wherein the decoder is a beam search decoder that finds an approximate solution by searching through a limited distribution of the contextual probability.

18. The system of claim 13 , wherein the processors are further operable when executing the instructions to:

modify a scoring function to find extractive word matches from the input sentences by directly estimating the contextual probability using a log-linear model.

Assignments (4)
CHANGE OF NAME Recorded Dec 20, 2021
From: FACEBOOK, INC.
To: META PLATFORMS, INC.
Reel/Frame 058553/0802 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jul 15, 2019
From: CHOPRA, SUMIT
To: FACEBOOK, INC.
Reel/Frame 049756/0592 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jul 15, 2019
From: RUSH, ALEXANDER
To: FACEBOOK, INC.
Reel/Frame 049756/0615 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Nov 15, 2017
From: WESTON, JASON EDWARD
To: FACEBOOK, INC.
Reel/Frame 044134/0638 →
Continuity (1)
Provisional Application 62382769 · Sep 1, 2016
Cited By (5)
US 12,217,180 US 12,271,410 US 12,444,408 US 12,456,018 US 12,536,378