From Question-Answering to Information-Seeking Dialogs Jerry R. Hobbs Artificial Intelligence Center SRI International Menlo Park, California (with Douglas Appelt, Chris Culy, David Israel, David Martin, Srini Narayanan, Mark Stickel, and Richard Waldinger)

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International2 Key Ideas 1. Logical analysis/decomposition of questions into component questions, using a reasoning engine 2. Use of component questions to drive subsequent dialogue, for elaboration, revision, and clarification 3. Bottoming out in variety of web resources and information extraction engine 4. Use of analysis of questions to determine, formulate, and present answers.

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International3 Composition of Information from Multiple Sources How far is it from Muscat to Kandahar? What is the lat/long of Muscat? What is the distance between the two lat/longs? What is the lat/long of Kandahar? Alexandrian Digital Library Gazetteer Geographical Formula or Question Decomposition via Logical Rules Resources Attached to Reasoning Process Alexandrian Digital Library Gazetteer GEMINI SNARK

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International4 An Information-Seeking Scenario How safe is the Muscat harbor for refueling US Navy ships? What recent terrorist incidents in Oman? Are relations between Oman and US friendly? How secure is the Muscat harbor? IR + IE Engine for searching recent news feeds Find map of harbor from DAML-encoded Semantic Web/Intelink Ask Analyst Question Decomposition via Logical Rules Resources Attached to Reasoning Process Asking User is one such Resource

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International5 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries?

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International6 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries? Purchase: Agent: Patient: Date: Location: Open Domain Information Extraction System

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International7 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries? subsidiary(x,y) parent(y,x) Purchase: Agent: XYZ, ABC, DEF,... Patient: Date: Location: Subsidiaries: XYZ: ABC,... DEF:..., XYZ,... DB

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International8 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries? illegal biowarfare Purchase: Agent: XYZ, ABC, DEF,... Patient: anthrax,... Date: Location: DB of bio-equip User Model

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International9 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries? Ask User Purchase: Agent: XYZ, ABC, DEF,... Patient: anthrax,... Date: since Jun01 Location:

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International10 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries? not USA Purchase: Agent: XYZ, ABC, DEF,... Patient: anthrax,... Date: since Jun01 Location: -- Filter Information Extraction System invoked

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International11 A Complex Query What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp or its subsidiaries or parent firm made in foreign countries? subsidiary(x,y) parent(y,x) Subsidiaries: XYZ: ABC,... DEF:..., XYZ,... illegal biowarfare DB of bio-equip Ask User not USA Purchase: Agent: XYZ, ABC, DEF,... Patient: anthrax,... Date: since Jun01 Location: --

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International12 A Dialog What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp made? illegal biowarfare DB of bio-equip Ask User Purchase: Agent: XYZ Patient: anthrax,... Date: since Jun01 Location:

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International13 A Dialog What recent purchases of suspicious equipment has XYZ Corp made? How about its subsidiaries or parent firm? illegal biowarfare DB of bio-equip Ask User Purchase: Agent: ABC, DEF,... Patient: anthrax,... Date: since Jun01 Location: subsidiary(x,y) parent(y,x) Subsidiaries: XYZ: ABC,... DEF:..., XYZ,...

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International14 Parsing Queries Use GEMINI Parser, Grammar, and Semantic Interpretation Complete for fronted wh-questions, yes-no questions Minor augmentations may be necessary Map current logical forms into SNARK expressions

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International15 Resolving Indeterminacies Determine precise interpretation of vague query: Specific interpretations for general predicates Resolving coreference and syntactic ambiguities Expanding metonymies Interpreting simple metaphors Use abduction capabilities of SNARK: Proof of query is answer, but also more precise interpretation of query

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International16 Decomposing Questions Decompose questions into subquestions via inference: P 1 & P 2 --> Q Axioms direct system toward specific available resources

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International17 Articulating with Resource Ontologies Axioms link language of general reasoning with language used by specific resource: P spec --> P gen Possible resources: Specific highly useful web sites DAML-encoded web sites in general FASTUS-based open-domain information extraction engine Quick&dirty Q&A system

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International18 Invoking Resources Resources will be invoked through Procedural attachment features of SNARK Open Agent Architecture (OAA)

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International19 Encoding Axioms Multiple knowledge bases will be used and linked to through the same kind of articulation axioms. Possible knowledge bases: CIA World Fact Book (partially axiomatized) DAML ontologies Structural Evidential Argumentation System (SEAS) (Genoa program) HPKB and RKF knowledge bases Subsets of CYC Core theories in some critical domains will be developed in this project

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International20 Filtering Responses from Resources Often an analyst requires specific information, but the resource can only be queried on general criteria Inference engine will filter answers from resource by more specific constraints

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International21 Structuring Answers Recompose answers to subquestions into answer to whole, using the structure of the proof graph that decomposed the question Construct hierarchically organized answers Enables drill-down and explanation

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International22 Structuring Dialog Proof structure of query is likely to be mirrored by structure of subsequent dialog -- details, fine modifications, clarifications, and elaborations Query may be a subquestion in a larger query that emerges in subsequent dialog -- proof tree of subsequent queries locates place for earlier query

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International23 Contributions: AQUAINT Areas of Interest Question-Answering: by inferential question-decomposition, bottoming out in calls to web and other resources. Information-seeking dialogs with subtopics driven by question-decomposition. Determining the Answer: by using the proof graph to recompose the information discovered in question analysis. Formulating and Presenting the Answer: by using the proof graph to structure the responses.

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International24 Contributions: Enabling Technologies Advanced Reasoning for Question-Answering Interactive Question-Answering Role of Context Sharable Knowledge Sources Content Representation Role of Knowledge Language Processing Our Primary Foci in AQUAINT Related SRI Projects + Strong Background Strong Background + Strong Software Base + Secondary Focus in AQUAINT

12/03/01Principal Investigator: Jerry R. Hobbs, SRI International25 Summary Inference provides a uniform framework for Analyzing questions into their components Linking to external resources Recomposing answers Structuring information-seeking dialogs