TRIPS - 911 System Demonstration

dynamically allocate resources to and make plans for solving problems as they arise in the world. The setting, Monroe County, NY, is considerably more complex than our previous domains (e.g. Pacifica, TRAINS), and raises new issues in knowledge representation and reference. Emergencies include requests for medical assistance, car accidents, civil disorder, and larger problems such as flooding and snow storms. Resources at the user's disposal may include road crews, electric crews, ambulances, police units and helicopters. Some of the increase in mixed-initiative interaction comes from givi-n~ the_ system more knowledge of the tasks being solved. Some comes from the fact that the solution to one problem may conflict with the solution to another, either because of scheduling conflicts, scarce resources, or aspects of the physical world (e.g. an ambulance can't go down a road that has not been plowed). The range of tasks and complexity of the world allow for problem solving at different levels of granu-larity, making it possible for the system to take as much control over the task as the user permits. 4. I m p o r t a n t C o n t r i b u t i o n s While a number of robust dialogue systems have been built in recent years, they mostly have operated in domains that require little if any reasoning. Rather, the task is hard-coded into the system operation. One of the major goals of the TRIPS project has been to develop dialogue models and system architectures that support conversational interaction in domains where complex reasoning systems are required. One goal has been to build a fairly generic model in which different domains can then be specified fairly easily. On this front, we are seeing some success as we have now constructed versions of TRIPS in three different domains, and TRIPS° 911 will be the fourth. In developing the system for new domains, the bulk of the work by far has been in system enhancements rather than in developing the domain models. The TRIPS-911 domain has forced a rethinking of the relationship between dialogue-management, problem-solving, the system's Figure 1: Monroe County map used in TRIPS-911 own goal-pursuit and generation. The new architecture is designed to support research into mixed-initiative interactions, incremental generation of content (in which the user might intervene before the system completes all it has to say), rich reference resolution models, and the introduction of …