Response Generation

The Virtual Collaborator - A Definition and Research Agenda

“…AIdescribessoftware,machinesorsystemsthattrytoachieveso-callednatural intelligenceinordertobecomeactiveinsolvingtasksorsupportinghumans (Russell &Norvig,2016).Incomputerscience,AIisusedtomimiccognitivefunctionsthat humanspossess,suchasnaturallanguage,learningandreasoning (Nilsson,2014).Due tothedrasticincreaseofcomputingpower,cloudcomputingandtheimprovementof neuralnetworks,AIhasdevelopedrapidlyoverthelastfewyears (Lu,Li,Chen,Kim, &Serikawa,2018).Besides,thevariousapplicationsinrobotics,healthcare,finance andmore,AIhasbecomeomnipresent (Nilsson,2014).Forallthesesystemsenabling ahumanconversationbetweenanISanditsuser,thereisawide-rangeofterms,to justnameafew:virtualpersonalassistant(MichaelF. McTear,2004),virtualsocial agent (Guzman,2017),digitalassistant (Guzman,2017),voiceassistant(M. McTear et al, 2016), social agent (Skalski & Tamborini, 2007), intelligent assistant (Lee, Lee,&Lee,2017),cognitiveassistant (Coronado,Iglesias,Carrera,&Mardomingo, 2018), personal robot (Mondal & Nandi, 2018) and conversational AI (Ram et al, 2018). McTear(2017)showstherelevanceanddevelopmentofthiskindofinteraction andusesthetermconversationalinterfaceasacurrentapproachtosummarizethis varietyofterms.Hedefinesaconversationalinterfaceasafront-endforachatbotor VAthatallowstheusertointeractwithasystemthroughtheuseofnaturallanguage.…”

“…Thesesystemsarecomputersoftwareprogramsthatintelligentlyperformfunctions, suchassupportingusersontheirowninitiative (Skalski&Tamborini,2007).Commonly knownapplicationsofAIlikeApple'sSiriorGoogleAssistantarepersonalassistants fulfillingeverydaytasksfortheiruser (M.McTearetal.,2016;Pearl,2016).Theycan carryouttasksandgivevariousinformationconcerningtopicslikeweather,traffic, restaurantinformationorevenmakeappointmentsattheuser'sfavoritehairdresser (see Google Duplex 1 ) (M. McTear et al, 2016;Zhao, 2006). Hence, these systems arealreadyabletounderstandnaturalhumanlanguageandinteractwithhumansin asocialway (Skalski&Tamborini,2007;Zhao,2006).AccordingtoMaedcheetal.…”