Conversation Interface Domains for Rapid Programming of Complex Natural Language

We propose to develop a programming environment that will greatly simplify the development of natural, cooperative natural language interfaces to complex systems. As flight operations and flight crews interact with larger numbers of complex and semi-autonomous systems, it is imperative that less demanding, more cooperative interfaces be developed. However, creating such interfaces is difficult. We believe these difficulties can be overcome by cleanly separating the complex language issues such as noun phrase resolution and dialog management, from the simpler issues ofdescribing the components of the system. Such a separation is made possible by defining broad Conversational Interface Domains (CIDs) that incorporate expert algorithms and heuristics for processing language within the domain. Thus, the interface programmer need only describe the specific objects, actions, and relationships that make up the application behind the interface. We believe that CIDs will significantly lower the cost and development time of effective, conversational interfaces. We plan to create a stable, commercial-grade version of a CID software engine and development system. The engine will run on hand-held wireless devices (PDAs) and allow distributed, conversational interaction to other CID-enabled devices.