Conversational Agent: Difference between revisions
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In common practice, conversational agent in an umbrella term generally used as synonym of chatbot, even if a chatbot is a conversational agent that communicate just via texts, on chat-based platforms (as instant-messaging mobile apps). | In common practice, conversational agent in an umbrella term generally used as synonym of chatbot, even if a chatbot is a conversational agent that communicate just via texts, on chat-based platforms (as instant-messaging mobile apps). | ||
Especially in academic parlance, the term conversational agent was synonym of chatbot, and the reason emphasis on the "agent" was maybe because conversational agents was considered a special application in intelligent systems<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent</ref> | Especially in academic parlance, the term conversational agent was synonym of chatbot, and the reason emphasis on the "agent" was maybe because conversational agents was considered a special application in intelligent systems<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent</ref> or Multi-agent systems<ref>/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system</ref> research. | ||
The term "agent" is probably misleading, because assimilating any conversational system as an agent that mediate between an end-user (e.g. a consumer of a business platform) and a business human operator. That's in general not true. Instead the agentive role is commonly related to a special case of conversational system that act as intermediator, requiring a final conversation with a human operator (that's commonly called, in customer service realms: ''human-in-the-loop''). | The term "agent" is probably misleading, because assimilating any conversational system as an agent that mediate between an end-user (e.g. a consumer of a business platform) and a business human operator. That's in general not true. Instead the agentive role is commonly related to a special case of conversational system that act as intermediator, requiring a final conversation with a human operator (that's commonly called, in customer service realms: ''human-in-the-loop''). | ||
Revision as of 14:34, 12 December 2021
A conversational agent, or better , a conversational system, is a computer system intended to converse with a human in a natural langue.
Let's see what wikipedia states for conversational agent:
A dialogue system, or conversational agent (CA), is a computer system intended to converse with a human. Dialogue systems employed one or more of text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures, and other modes for communication on both the input and output channel.[1].
In common practice, conversational agent in an umbrella term generally used as synonym of chatbot, even if a chatbot is a conversational agent that communicate just via texts, on chat-based platforms (as instant-messaging mobile apps).
Especially in academic parlance, the term conversational agent was synonym of chatbot, and the reason emphasis on the "agent" was maybe because conversational agents was considered a special application in intelligent systems[2] or Multi-agent systems[3] research.
The term "agent" is probably misleading, because assimilating any conversational system as an agent that mediate between an end-user (e.g. a consumer of a business platform) and a business human operator. That's in general not true. Instead the agentive role is commonly related to a special case of conversational system that act as intermediator, requiring a final conversation with a human operator (that's commonly called, in customer service realms: human-in-the-loop).
But there are many cases where the conversational system is not properly an agent, by example in pure command-and-control conversational systems that just execute automation commands to action (electro-mechanical) actuators, by example in home-automation or industrial automation realms.
Nevertheless the concept of "conversational agent", even if ambiguous, is currently an active area of research of virtual assistants, in the sense of a real agentive/automation technology that assists humans to solve real-life problems, in real-time in a reactive and proactive way (co called mixed-initiative). Voice assistants are a special case of virtual assistants[4], where the human-computer interaction is mainly done via voice (voicefirst). Smartspeakers are HW device terminals that enable humans to interact with a (voice) assistant.