This essay presents a philosophical and computational theory of the representation of de re, de dicto, nested, and quasi-indexical belief reports expressed in natural language. The propositional Semantic Network Processing System (SNePS) is used for representing and reasoning about these reports. In particular, quasi-indicators (indexical expressions occurring in intentional contexts and representing uses of indicators by another speaker) pose problems for natural-language representation and reasoning systems, because--unlike pure indicators--they cannot be replaced by coreferential NPs without changing the meaning of the (...) embedding sentence. Therefore, the referent of the quasi-indicator must be represented in such a way that no invalid coreferential claims are entailed. The importance of quasi-indicators is discussed, and it is shown that all four of the above categories of belief reports can be handled by a single representational technique using belief spaces containing intensional entities. Inference rules and belief-revision techniques for the system are also examined. (shrink)

Interactive narratives have been used in a variety of applications, including video games, educational games, and training simulations. Maintaining engagement within such environments is an important problem, because it affects entertainment, motivation, and presence. Performance arts theorists have discussed and formalized many techniques that increase engagement and enhance dramatic content of art productions. While constructing a narrative manually, using these techniques, is acceptable for linear media, using this approach for interactive environments results in inflexible experiences due to the unpredictability of (...) users’ actions. Few researchers attempted to develop adaptive interactive narrative experiences. However, developing a quality interactive experience is largely an art process, and many of these adaptive techniques do not encode artistic principles. This paper presents a new interactive narrative architecture designed using a set of dramatic techniques that have been formulated based on several years of training in film and theatre. (shrink)

In order to be capable of exhibiting a wide range of cooperative behavior, a computer-based dialog system must have available assumptions about the current user's goals, plans, background knowledge and (false) beliefs, i.e., maintain a so-called “user model”. Apart from cooperativity aspects, such a model is also necessary for intelligent coherent dialog behavior in general. This article surveys recent research on the problem of how such a model can be constructed, represented and used by a system during its interaction with (...) the user. Possible applications, as well as potential problems concerning the advisability of application, are then discussed. Finally, a number of guidelines are presented which should be observed in future research to reduce the risk of a potential misuse of user modeling technology. (shrink)

Expert Systems (ES) are as yet imperfectly defined. Their two consistently cited characteristics are domain knowledge and expert-level performance. We propose that current structural definitions are inadequate and suggest a view of ES as communication channels. We proceed to explore the factors influencing applicability of ES technology to an enterprise and the impacts that could be expected. A consequence of this view is the idea of incremental information loss on the path from the expert to the ES user. Strategies for (...) minimizing this loss derive naturally from our perspective and are evident in successful ES. (shrink)

When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a mental model or a user model of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving (...) higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice-giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi-attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness. (shrink)

When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a mental model or a user model of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving (...) higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice‐giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi‐attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness. (shrink)

Privacy remains an intractable ethical issue for the information society, and one that is exacerbated by modern applications of artificial intelligence. Given its complicity, there is a moral obligation to redress privacy issues in systems engineering practice itself. This paper investigates the role the concept of privacy plays in contemporary systems engineering practice. Ontologically a nominalist human concept, privacy is considered from an appropriate engineering perspective: human-centred design. Two human-centred design standards are selected as exemplars of best practice, and are (...) analysed using an existing multi-dimensional privacy model. The findings indicate that the human-centred standards are currently inadequate in dealing with privacy issues. Some implications for future practice are subsequently highlighted. (shrink)

The issue on the role of users in knowledge-based systems can be investigated from two aspects: the design aspect and the functionality aspect. Participatory design is an important approach for the first aspect while system adaptability supported by user modelling is crucial to the second aspect. In the article, we discuss the second aspect. We view a knowledge-based computer system as the partner of users' problem-solving process, and we argue that the system functionality can be enhanced by adapting the behaviour (...) of the system to fit the needs of users with different profiles. We emphasise that the notion of user modelling is crucial to realise such kind of flexibility. User modelling will be beneficial to the user, not only through adaptive interfaces, but also through the enhanced system adaptability. In a knowledge-based system, by incorporating user models, searching can be reduced to a smaller portion in the knowledge-base, thus enhancing system functionality. In other words, user modelling is incorporated to realise flexible inference control to achieve system adaptability. An example is provided, and a general conceptual model is sketched. We conclude this paper by emphasising that the design aspect and functionality aspect are complementary. Achieving enhanced functionality through joint efforts of computers and human users indicates a kind of participatory execution of computerised problem-solving or participatory problem-solving. (shrink)