In developing telephone-based conversational systems, we foresee future systems capable of supporting multiple domains and flexible vocabulary. Users can pursue several topics of interest within a single telephone call, and the system is able to switch transparently among domains within…

by Yevgeniya Zemlyakova., Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000., Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-86).

by Abbinav Taneja., Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technology and Policy Program; and, (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-116).

We strain our eyes, cramp our necks, and destroy our hands trying to interact with computer on their terms. At the extreme, we strap on devices and weigh ourselves down with cables trying to re-create a sense of place inside…

All intelligence relies on search - for example, the search for an intelligent agent's next action. Search is only likely to succeed in resource-bounded agents if they have already been biased towards finding the right answer. In artificial agents, the…