Dialogue systems at KTH

1. Dialogue systems at KTH Olga Waxholm 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 00 99

2. The August project

3. Key features of the August system • Part of the Stockholm Cultural Capital of Europe '98 program • Swedish spoken dialogue system with an animated agent • Named after the 19th century author August Strindberg • Built with speech technology components developed at TMH • Designed to be easily expanded and reconfigured • Communicates using synthetic speech, facial expressions, maps, tables and a thought balloon • Used to collect spontaneous speech data

4. The topics of the August system • Stockholm (events and general information) • Yellow pages • KTH and speech technology • August Strindberg • Greetings and social utterances • Comments about the system capabilities and the discourse

5. A sample video of the system environment Excellent as always! You must specify a street Hello August How are you today? What can I ask about? Is there one close by? Hello! Can you see me? But we are here! But we are here! Where? Where are we? Are we in Kulturhuset? I did not understand that! Where are we? My life cannot be measured in terms of days and years! I can tell you about restaurants in Stockholm We are now in the center of Stockholm There are 24,000 islands in the Stockholm archipelago The information is shown on the map There are over 700 restaurants in Stockholm Can you recommend a restaurant in the neighborhood Are there any restaurants on Blekingegatan? My life cannot be measured in terms of days and years!

6. The August system Yes, it might be that we will! What is your name? Strindberg was born in 1849 What do you do for a living? When were you born? Do you like it here? Good bye! Thank you! You are welcome! Strindberg was married three times! Strindberg was married three times! Over a million people live in the Stockholm area I can answer questions about Strindberg, KTH and Stockholm I call myself Strindberg, but I don’t really have a surname How many people live in Stockholm? People who live in glass houses should not throw stones I come from the department of Speech, Music and Hearing The information is shown on the map Yes, that was a smart thing to say! The Royal Institute of Technology! Perhaps we will meet soon again!

7. The AdApt system • Multimodal conversational dialogue system • System features an animated agent and an interactive map in an apartment domain • Developed by researchers from Centre for Speech Technology (KTH) and Telia Research • (Linda Bell, Johan Boye, Rolf Carlson, Jens Edlund, David House, Joakim Gustafson and Mats Wirén)

8. The Adapt user interface

9. The AdApt project presented in a popular science program broadcasted on Swedish national television, May 2000 They offer us advice on stock exchange and there are virtual news anchors None of them understand what we say At the Centre for Speech Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology researchers are developing animated agents that will be able to engage in dialogues The animated agent Urban will be able to pursue a freer sort of conversation My name is Urban. What can I do for you? Well, what can you do? I can tell you about available apartments in downtown Stockholm I'd like to look at two-room apartments on the south side of town with a balcony and a fireplace I have information about five such apartments, and I now show their locations on the map Thank you very much This is fun, but I could just as well access this information through a text-based interface What is the purpose of speaking computer? The same information can be accessed, but perhaps more efficiently The system can also compare different apartments I think speaking computers will be important in the future You don't need the keyboard Disabled people can use them and inexperienced computer users What are the difficulties involved? Our goal is to build a system that can handle a more complex sort of dialogue A lot of problems remain to be solved... ... many things in the dialogue can go wrong misunderstandings occur We are now collecting data to see how people speak to such a computer ...to try to improve the performance of future systems Do people speak about anything just because it is a face they are talking to? We get a sense of trust, since we believe the animated agent has human capabilities This is something we have observed in our data - people like to socialize with Urban and they enjoy talking to him about this and that. And once they have been developed, what do you think their functions will be? They will be used for a wide range of things They can be used as personal assistants and there is a commercial potential We will probably see them selling things. When can we meet Urban again Stockholm Technical museum, where he will be part of an exhibition shown this summer Urban will make a guest appearance there And you can talk to him Do you know what the next part of the program will be about? Yes, about magnifying glasses that the Vikings used a thousand years ago Animated faces are appearing everywhere

10. Hello my name is Urban and I can tell you about nice apartments in downtown Stockholm Hi Urban..eh..are there any available apartments .. around here How many rooms do you want I want a three room apartment..eh..it would be nice with an older one There are five apartments in the shaded area Well this apartment on Nybrogatan, can you tell me a little bit more about it The blue apartment was built in 1920. It has a tiled stove and a parquette floor Alright and..eh..the yellow apartment The yellow building was constructed in 1883 Does this apartment also have tiled stoves? I’m sorry but I can’t answer that question