1. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 1Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Project Pocket Gopher Conversational Learning Agent Team Josh Jones Philip Little Tiffany Takahara Advisor Dr. Rylander Industry Representative Ms. Glenna Van Duzer Harland Financial Solutions

2. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 2Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Agenda Introduction Philip Background Philip Methods Tiffany Results Josh Conclusions Tiffany Demonstration

3. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 3Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Introduction Thanks to Dr. Rylander, Ms. Glenna Van Duzer and Dr. Ward for all of their help.

4. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 4Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Introduction Objective: Allow computers to process human language. Provide a foundation for future programs that ‘understand’ and respond to written language. Provide a sample application that uses this foundation.

5. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 5Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Background Loebner Prize Contest, Artificial Intelligence Initial vision: Design a program which can converse normally with a human. Actual scope: A program which can present the grammatical breakdown of a sentence. Application areas: User interfaces, search technology, tech support, software development, etc.

6. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 6Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Background Parsing written language: A hard problem. No, I mean a really hard problem. Entire research field devoted to this area.

7. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 7Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering The CLA (Conversational Learning Agent) The user types an English sentence into the CLA, to which the CLA gives a response. The CLA’s response is determined by its current “personality module.” The default personality module recognizes the grammatical structure of a sentence.

8. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 8Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering The CLA (cont.) Words and grammar rules can be added to the CLA’s data file. –(the “learning” in Conversational Learning Agent) Definitions are associated with each word.

9. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 9Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Methods Rapid Application Development Model 3 main parts: Underlying Architecture (Josh), GUI (Tiffany), Parser (Philip). Modeling Phase done as a group Construction done individually Integration & Deployment done as a group

10. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 10Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Methods Underlying Architecture (Josh) Lets the program access word definitions. Hash table for fast word lookup. Allows new words to be added to datafile.

11. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 11Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Methods GUI (Tiffany) Implemented in C++. Designed for Windows XP. Chat interface, Word Editor, and Rules Editor. Integration with personality module and parsing back-end.

12. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 12Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Methods Parser (Philip) Researched existing algorithms. Built parser back-end around modified algorithm. Designed public interface & integrated

13. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 13Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering User Personality Module ParserWord Graph Sentence Response Sentence Parse Tree GUI Chat Window Sentence Definitions Response Architecture

14. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 14Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Architecture Consists of 4 main objects interacting GUI –The interface which the user interacts with the program. –Three modes of interaction Word Graph –Internal database of recognized words and their definitions.

15. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 15Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Architecture (Cont.) Personality Module –Determines responses based on grammatical structure of a sentence and its meaning. –Functionality decided by developer –May update Word Graph Parser –Analyzes the sentence and identifies grammatical structure

16. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 16Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Implementation Parsing isn’t as easy as it sounds! Consider the sentence “Book that flight.” 1. Book. “It must be a noun!” 2. That. “A determinant?” 3. Flight. “Another noun?” “Book” is a verb in this context.

17. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 17Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Implementation Solution: Earley Algorithm Only tests grammatical correctness Solution: Modify to include parse tree info

18. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 18Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Improvements Make properties/relationships within words more dynamic –The different properties definitions can have is currently hard-coded. Use a data file for easier modification if other representations are needed. Allow removal of definitions. –Current design does not like forgetting its vocabulary. Handle numbers

19. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 19Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Conclusions The CLA currently provides a method of quickly identifying various parts of English sentences. The CLA provides the means to be easily extended with further capabilities –Learning new words, relationships based on user input. –Providing different kinds of responses. An exciting step into the problem of natural language recognition.

20. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 20Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Demonstration Inputting various sentences, showing how the CLA responds. Adding and modifying word information. Adding and modifying grammar rules.

21. CS-EE 481 Spring 2005 21Founders Day, 2005 University of Portland School of Engineering Any Questions? Thank You! (Not exactly a pocket gopher…)