For NL interfaces, it's important to do something appropriate for
anything that the human speaker or writer might say. In effect,
the *output* NL is more tightly controlled than the input. (01)
As an example, the GoArmy web site has had "Sgt. Star" answering
questions since 2006. He has now been implemented as an Android
app, which will be converted to an Apple app in January. (02)
Sgt. Star behaves somewhat like Siri, but he is more specific,
since he's specialized to a particular audience (potential
recruits in the 18-20 year old range) and a particular topic
(questions that recruits might ask). (03)
See below for the URL and some excerpts. You can also click on
a video of Sgt. Star answering questions on Android. The voice
answers are also printed on the screen. (04)
Sgt. Star can also transfer a call to a human for critical
issues. Before the transfer, he asks some clarifying questions
to narrow the topic. (05)
This is a good example of what can be done today. We should
expect more to come -- and we should design our systems and
ontologies to accommodate such interfaces. (06)
John
___________________________________________________________________ (07)
http://www.fastcompany.com/3003716/siri-yes-siri-sgt-star-becomes-armys-version-apples-digital-assistant (08)
Enter the U.S. Army's Sgt. Star, a voice tech system the Army was using
on its recruitment web page. It's been through smartphone boot camp and
emerged a full-blown app... (09)
The Sgt. Star app is also much more than a smart recruitment tool that
may appeal to the tech-savvy youth of today. Since inception on the
GoArmy site in 2006 he's "answered more than 11-million sensitive,
personal and potentially life-altering questions." (010)
Next IT's CTO Denise Caron told Fast Company that "as we evolved Sgt.
Star it's not only supporting recruiters but also a lot of questions
that soldiers and their family would have. The evolution with mobile was
really to improve the user experience of all that. So much so that the
GoArmy site now wants to revamp the site to make it more like the mobile
app we're launching." (011)
Star users, somewhat surprisingly, also ask it more intimate questions
than you may think--and that's a situation that's likely to expand now
that Star is an app and can be accessed pretty much everywhere. Caron
explained that at first this was a surprise to Next IT too, but one
"reason it's been so popular is that it can answer some of the awkward
questions, especially if you're a woman and you're trying to figure out
if you're going to be based with men in the same room. They like the
tool to be anonymous from that perspective." (012)
We've long suspected that voice tools like Siri and Sgt. Star are the
future of mobile device interfaces, and Caron reminded us of this fact
when she noted that in terms of web tools when Sgt. Star was first
created the Army had a manned back-end chat tool alongside it, but Sgt.
Star became so capable that he was able to displace that and now is the
only chat interface available. (013)
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