SIGdial 2018

19th Annual SIGdial Meeting on Discourse and Dialogue

Cogent: A Generic Dialogue System Shell Based on a Collaborative Problem Solving Model

Lucian Galescu, Choh Man Teng, James Allen, Ian Perera

The bulk of current research in dialogue systems is focused on fairly simple task models, primarily state-based. Progress on developing dialogue systems for more complex tasks has been limited by the lack generic toolkits to build from. In this paper we report on our development from the ground up of a new dialogue model based on collaborative problem solving. We implemented the model in a dialogue system shell (Cogent) that allows developers to plug in problem-solving agents to create dialogue systems in new domains. The Cogent shell has now been used by several independent teams of researchers to develop dialogue systems in different domains, with varied lexicons and interaction style, each with their own problem-solving backend. We believe this to be the first practical demonstration of the feasibility of a CPSbased dialogue system shell.