Dialog in the open world

Abstract

We review key challenges of developing spoken dialog systems that can engage in interactions with one or multiple participants in relatively unconstrained environments. We outline a set of core competencies for open-world dialog, and describe three prototype systems. The systems are built on a common underlying conversational framework which integrates an array of predictive models and component technologies, including speech recognition, head and pose tracking, probabilistic models for scene analysis, multiparty engagement and turn taking, and inferences about user goals and activities. We discuss the current models and showcase their function by means of a sample recorded interaction, and we review results from an observational study of open-world, multiparty dialog in the wild.