SBIR Phase I: A Platform for Commercial Dialogue Systems with Fluid Turn-Taking Skills

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是，它将朝着社会需求取得进展，以提高人们与计算机交谈的效率和灵活性，并减少许多人在试图用当前的语音系统完成任务时感到的挫折感。支持语音的系统的商业应用正在迅速增加，包括充当虚拟助理、自动化客户服务功能的系统，以及通常使人们能够在家中、汽车中以及在整个日常生活中用他们的声音完成事情的系统。随着这些应用在整个社会中的扩展，我们将不可避免地发现自己越来越频繁地与自动化系统交谈。该公司的创新平台旨在使人们能够在这些互动中更自然、更有效地沟通。该项目将开发方法来改善人们在与各种企业和组织开发的基于语音的应用程序交互时的沟通方式。该项目将提高人们对对话系统技术的先进研究创新如何被带入商业竞技场的理解，并有助于创新性对话平台的技术开发。这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目推进了语言处理和对话系统技术的开发和商业化，提高了与自动化系统对话的效率和自然性，同时减少了用户的挫折感。该项目解决了软件体系结构标准化、语言处理模型通用化以及自动会话内容创作和控制方法方面的技术障碍。第一阶段的目标是展示拟议的对话平台的整体技术可行性。项目计划包括数据收集、技术开发和评价步骤，以实现这一目标。一个预期的结果是提高对最有前途的技术途径的理解，以使商业对话系统中的更自然的会话技能。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is that it will make progress toward the societal need to increase the efficiency and flexibility with which people can talk to computers, and reduce the frustration that many people feel in trying to get things done with current speech-enabled systems. Commercial applications of speech-enabled systems are increasing very rapidly, including systems that act as virtual assistants, automate customer service functions, and generally enable people to get things done with their voices in their homes, cars, and throughout daily life. As these applications expand throughout society, we will inevitably find ourselves speaking to automated systems more and more often. The company's innovative platform is designed to enable people to communicate more naturally and efficiently in these interactions. This project will develop ways to improve how people can communicate as they interact with speech-based applications developed by a variety of businesses and organizations. The project will enhance understanding of how advanced research innovations in dialogue systems technology can be brought into the commercial arena and contribute to the technical development of an innovative new dialogue platform. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project advances the development and commercialization of language processing and dialogue system technologies that increase the efficiency and naturalness of speaking to an automated system while reducing user frustration. The project addresses technical hurdles in the standardization of software architecture, generalization of language processing models, and methods for authoring and controlling the content of automated conversations. The objective for Phase I is to demonstrate the overall technical feasibility of the proposed conversational platform. The project plan includes data collection, technical development, and evaluation steps to achieve this objective. An anticipated outcome is an improved understanding of the most promising technical avenues to enable more natural conversational skills in commercial dialogue systems.