Computers these days, or should I say computer platforms, are well equipped with personal assistants like Cortana, Siri etc. and even chat bots, which converse with you and answer your various queries. While they are pretty smart, there’s still room for improvement when it comes to unknown queries and well, if the latest development is put into use, your computer will be able to learn unknown words quickly and have a more useful dialog with you.
The new development comes from the scientists at Osaka University in Japan. The researchers here have developed a new “Lexical acquisition through implicit confirmation” technique, which allows a computer to learn new words over multiple conversations. Apparently, the computer will be able to detect and confirm the category of unknown words and then, acquire knowledge about the whole category through the web. Here’s how it works:
Currently, the chat bots and voice assistants only answer to queries they have been programmed to answer but with this new method, they will be able to answer almost anything. Plus, according to the researchers, this method will also make conversing with a computer more interesting. Also, unlike the current computers, who answer the queries similarly for everyone, the new method will allow a computer to customize the responses and suggestions according to the behavior of the user.
The new technique uses machine learning, so the computers will only learn more with more conversations, while also conversing in a style that a user desires. If you are thinking when will the new dialog system method make its way to the computers we know and love, well, we don’t have the answer to that and chances are, it won’t take long, as we are already seeing the advent of machine learning in almost all software and platforms.
