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On the Lack of Pragmatic Processing in Artificial Conversational Agents

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Book cover Human Systems Engineering and Design (IHSED 2018)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 876))

Abstract

With the increasing demand for automated agents able to communicate with humans, a lot of progress has been made in the field of artificial intelligence in order to produce conversational agents able to sustain open or topic-restricted conversations. Still, they remain far from the capacity of interaction displayed by humans. This article highlights the challenges still faced in artificial social interaction regarding the contextualization of utterances within a conversation, either in chatbots or in more complex social robots, through processing of the pragmatic clues of conversations, using current knowledge in psychology and linguistics. It also suggests a number of points of interest for the development of artificial agents aimed at improving their communication with humans, the relevance of their utterances, and the relationship with the people interacting with them. We believe that in order to be recognized as a social agent, an artificial agent must follow similar rules humans follow themselves when conversing with each other.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This conversation is from a public message on Twitter, available at https://twitter.com/zochats/status/1009141014827761664. It is possible to chat with the bot directly on the same page, through private messages.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. P-A-R-I-S Association, 25 rue Henri Barbusse, 75005, Paris, France

    Baptiste Jacquet, Olivier Masson, Frank Jamet & Jean Baratgin

  2. Laboratoire CHArt - EA4004 (Université Paris VIII & EPHE), 4-14 rue Ferrus, 75014, Paris, France

    Baptiste Jacquet, Olivier Masson, Frank Jamet & Jean Baratgin

  3. Université Cergy-Pontoise (UCP), 33, boulevard du Port, 95011, Cergy-Pontoise Cedex, France

    Frank Jamet

  4. Institut Jean-Nicod (IJN), Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005, Paris, France

    Jean Baratgin

Authors
  1. Baptiste Jacquet
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  2. Olivier Masson
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  3. Frank Jamet
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  4. Jean Baratgin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baptiste Jacquet .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Tareq Ahram

  2. University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Waldemar Karwowski

  3. Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France

    Redha Taiar

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Jacquet, B., Masson, O., Jamet, F., Baratgin, J. (2019). On the Lack of Pragmatic Processing in Artificial Conversational Agents. In: Ahram, T., Karwowski, W., Taiar, R. (eds) Human Systems Engineering and Design. IHSED 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 876. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02053-8_60

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