Plan Revision in Person-Machine Dialogue

PLAN REVISION IN PERSON-MACHINE DIALOGUE Cldo JULLIEN Jean-Charles MARTY Grenoble Research Center of CAP SESA INNOVATION 33, Chemin du Vieux Chine 38240 Meylan France e-mail: jullien@capsogeti.fr, marty@capsogeti.fr Abstract Dialogue is a cooperative process in which each speech act of the participants con- tributes to the overall purpose of the dia- logne. Participating in a full dialogue im- plies understanding at each point of the dialogue session the role of each speech act with respect to the rest of the dia- logne. We concentrate in this paper on speech acts that diverge from the straight- forward unfolding of the dialogue. Such speech acts represent dialogue deviations. We analyze the representation of differ- ent types and degrees of deviations and present a plan revision mechanism for dialogue management that permits their treatment in the context of advice giving dialogues between a novice user and an ex- pert problem solver. 1 A Sample Dialogue In ESPRIT project ESTEAM-3161, we are designing a dialoguer that manages the interaction between a novice user and ZESTEAM-316: ~An Architecture for Interac- tive Problem Solving by Cooperating Data and Knowledge Bases m supported in part by the CEC. advice--giving expert systems. The test- bed application is personal financial in- vestment [5]. As an introduction to our paper, we present a dialogue in which the system obtains from the user the informa- tion needed to activate the financial expert system. 01,S: Hello. Tell ms about your investment problem. 02,U: I'd like to buy a car in two years. 08,S: Ok. Normally an investment plan comprise8 four 8ubparte: an emergency fund, for unforeseen ezpenses; a cash need when you know you'll need a cer- tain sum at a certain date, aa is the case with your car; a fized-term investment to earn the mazimum in a specified time period; and a long-term investment for an indefinite amount of time which can be designed either for capital growth or for a regular income. How much do you want to investf 04,U: $,~0000. 05,S: How much .do you want to put into an emergency fundf 06,U: Let's talk about my car first. 07,S: Ok, how much do you think your car will coetf 08,U: Oh, let'8 say $9000, I 9ue88. - 153- 09,S: And you plan to buy it in two yearsf IO,U: Yes. 11,S: Ok, if you put $7,500 in a money. market fund earning 9.9~ p.a., in two years you'll have $9,000. Let's return to the emergency fund, now. How much do you want to put in itf 12,U: $5000. 18,S: Tell me also the delay. 14,U: I don't understand tohat is the delay of an emergency fund. 15,S: The delay is how soon you can have your money back after asking for it. 5o, for your emergency fund, what is this delayf 16,U: ~ days. 17,S: Do you want a ftxed term investmentf 18,U: No. 19,S: ~o, it leaves $7,500 for your long-term investment. Is it okf 20,U: I wanted $10000. 21,S: If you want art investment plan for …

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