Back to the Future for Dialogue Research: A Position Paper

TL;DR

This position paper critiques current dialogue research approaches, offering a roadmap for future collaborative efforts based on 40 years of experience, focusing on chatbots, slot-filling, and plan-based systems.

Contribution

It provides an informed critique and a strategic roadmap for advancing dialogue research, emphasizing collaboration and reflection on past approaches.

Findings

Current dialogue systems have limitations that need addressing.

A collaborative research roadmap can improve dialogue system development.

Historical insights inform future directions in dialogue research.

Abstract

This short position paper is intended to provide a critique of current approaches to dialogue, as well as a roadmap for collaborative dialogue research. It is unapologetically opinionated, but informed by 40 years of dialogue re-search. No attempt is made to be comprehensive. The paper will discuss current research into building so-called "chatbots", slot-filling dialogue systems, and plan-based dialogue systems. For further discussion of some of these issues, please see (Allen et al., in press).