CI-NEW: Collaborative Research: DialPort: Enabling Spoken Dialog Research with Real Data

最近，随着SIRI（TM）的出现，人们对口语对话研究产生了新的兴趣。这个应用程序激发了许多人的想象力，他们开始相信与自动助手交谈是可能的，也是有用的。很快，每个人都需要使用语音来与技术交流，比如智能手表，它不能使用键盘。使用语音还将使老年人和残疾人等更广泛地接触到技术。它将成为一种经济动力，刺激新技术和以技术为基础的产品。对话门户项目和社区基础设施DialPort的愿景是，它将作为一个中心门户服务于口语对话社区，它将吸引真实用户使用现有的对话系统，同时也激发新的口语对话数据流的创建。它将分发数据和软件，并对研究人员进行这两方面的教育，从而使新同事更容易进入这个领域。DialPort将把高中生和大学生（他们一生都与技术生活在一起，可以想象他们想如何与技术交谈）与技术专家联系起来，技术专家可以帮助他们实现自己的想法。DialPort将使口语对话社区能够访问前所未有的大量语音数据，这对于创建成功的对话系统至关重要，因为它用于重新训练它们（添加数据使统计表示更精确），评估它们（比较系统有助于发现哪些新技术可以改进系统）并创建新系统。通过这种方式，DialPort的贡献将导致更高质量的研究和广泛使用语音技术。DialPort项目和社区基础设施的首要目标是在许多不同领域提供真实用户的语音，这些语音将为社区生成数据和研究平台。作为一个中心门户，它将吸引真正的用户到与它相连的口语对话系统。DialPort将把高中生和大学生对语音技术的新颖、变革性应用的想法与当前的口语对话社区的技术联系起来。最终的实际应用程序将提供来自实际用户的数据流，这些用户对重复使用应用程序感兴趣，因为它在某种程度上（解决某些任务，或娱乐他们）帮助了他们。这将使研究人员使他们的系统更加健壮。DialPort还将提供对口语对话软件和数据的访问，并教育社区成员如何使用它们。口语对话中尚未解决的基础研究问题包括：噪声中的信号处理、“困难”用户群体（如老年人和非母语使用者）的识别、复杂对话的管理（即会议和与代理人的对话）以及韵律等元语言信息的自动使用。DialPort将激发新的应用程序，这些应用程序可以用作研究平台，在那里可以探索这些问题和其他问题。匹兹堡过去就曾提供过一个这样的公交信息平台。从那时起，研究不断发展，需要在更具挑战性的领域和更多设备上使用真正的对话系统。一个站点不能创建并运行所有这些。DialPort将帮助社区创建这些系统，确保它们满足他们的需求，并就统一的基础设施达成共识。DialPort项目包括：(1)提供一个中央门户，真实的用户可以去那里连接到许多语音对话系统，从而产生大量的真实用户语音；(2)举办一年一度的“真实挑战赛”，激发人们对未来语音使用方式的想法，面向高中生和本科生，对他们进行口语对话系统的教育；(3)收集社区可以使用的工具，确保它们的文档，并教导研究人员如何使用它们。

New interest in spoken dialog research has recently been generated by the advent of SIRI(TM). This application ignited the imagination of many who have begun to believe that speaking to automatic assistants is possible and useful. Soon everyone will need to use speech to communicate with technology, such as smart watches, which can't use a keyboard. Using speech will also give wider access to technology, for example to the elderly and the disabled. It will serve as an economic motivator, spurring new technology and technology-based products. The vision of the Dialog Portal project and community infrrastructure, DialPort, is that it will serve the spoken dialog community by being a central portal that will attract real users to existing dialog systems while also sparking the creation of new streams of spoken dialog data. It will distribute data and software and educate researchers about both, thus making it easier for new colleagues to access this domain. DialPort will link high school and undergraduate students (who have lived with the technology all of their lives, and can imagine how they would like to talk to technology), with technology experts who can help them implement their ideas. DialPort will enable the spoken dialog community to access an unprecedented amount of speech data, which is essential in creating successful dialog systems, as it is used to retrain them (adding data makes the statistical representations more precise) and to assess them (comparing systems helps find which novel techniques improve the systems) and to create new ones. In this manner, the contribution of DialPort will lead to both higher quality research and to widespread use of speech technology. The overarching goal of the DialPort project and community infrastructure is providing real users' speech in many different domains that will generate data and research platforms for the community. As a central portal it will attract the real users to spoken dialog systems that are linked to it. DialPort will relate high school and undergraduate students' ideas for novel, transformational applications of speech technology with the current spoken dialog community's technology. The resulting real applications will provide the streams of data from real users who are interested in repeatedly using an application because it helps them in some way (solving some task, or entertaining them). This will allow researchers to make their systems more robust. DialPort will also provide access to spoken dialog software and data and educate members of the community in their use.Unsolved basic research issues in spoken dialog include: signal processing in noise, recognition of groups of "difficult" users (like the elderly and non-native speakers), management of complex dialogs (i.e. in meetings and with agents), and the automatic use of meta-linguistic information such as prosody. DialPort will spark new applications that can be used as research platforms where these and other issues can be explored. One such platform has been provided in the past for bus information in Pittsburgh. Since then, research has evolved, necessitating real dialog systems in more challenging areas and on more devices. One site cannot create and run all of them. DialPort will help the community to create these systems, insuring that they meet their needs and obtaining consensus on a unified infrastructure. The DialPort project includes: (1) providing a central portal where real users can go to be connected to many spoken dialog systems, thus generating large amounts of real user speech; (2) conducting the yearly REAL Challenge to spark ideas for ways that speech will be used in the future, addressing high school and undergraduate students and educating them about spoken dialog systems; and (3) gathering tools that the community can use, ensuring their documentation and teaching researchers about their use.