A personal agents hybrid architecture for question answering featuring social dialog

Abstract

There exists a growing trend in using NLIs (Natural Language Interfaces) that ranges from research to commercial products. Conversational agents beneath these interfaces have become more sophisticated, being able to either perform a task in behalf of the user or give a precise response to a question as Question Answering systems do. When combining Conversational Agents with QA capabilities the maintenance cost exponentially increases. In this paper we propose a hybrid architecture for a Question Answering system that features social dialog. We claim that including social dialog in QA systems increases users satisfaction and makes them easily engage with the system. Finally, we present an evaluation that supports these hypotheses.