Agents That Communicate

Chris Bourne Chris Christen Bryan Hryciw

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent Summary

Introduction
Communication is the intentional exchange of information brought about by the production and perception of signs drawn from a shared system of conventional signs.
Most animals employ a fixed set of signs to represent messages that are important to their survival: food here, predator nearby, approach, withdraw, lets mate. Humans, just as many other animals, use a limited number of signs to communicate (smiling, shaking hands)

Introduction
Humans are the only animal that has developed a complex, structured system of signs, known as language, that enables us to communicate most of what they know about the world.
Although other animals such as chimpanzees and dolphins have shown vocabularies of hundreds of symbols, humans are the only species that can communicate an unbounded number of qualitatively different messages.

Although there are other uniquely human attributes, such as wearing clothes and watching TV, Turing created his test based on language because language is closely tied to thinking, in a way these other attributes are not.

Origins & Evolution of Language

Did humans develop the use of language because we are smart, or are we smart because we use language well?
Jerrison, 1991: Human language stems from a need for better cognitive maps of territory. Canines rely heavily on scent marking and their sense of smell to determine where they are and what other animals have been there. Since primates do not have such a highly developed sense of smell, they substituted vocal sounds for scent marking.

Overview
Communication as Action
Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Communication as Action
Speech Act: The action available to an agent to produce language includes talking, typing, sign language, etc. Speaker - An agent that produces a speech act Hearer - An agent that receives a speech act
Why would agents choose to perform a speech act? To be able to: Inform, Query, Answer, Request or Command, Promise, Acknowledge and Share

Communication as Action
Transferring Information to Hearer: Inform:
each other about the part of the world each has explored, so other agent has less exploring to do. Ex. Theres a breeze in 3 4.

Answer:
questions. This is a kind of informing. Ex. Yes, I smelled the

wumpus in 2 3.

Acknowledge:
requests and offers. Ex. Okay.

Share:
feelings and experiences with each other. Ex. You know, that

wumpus sure needs deodorant.

Communication as Action
Make the Hearer take some action: Promise:
to do things or offer deals. Ex. Ill shoot the wumpus if you let me

share the gold.

Query:
other agents about particular aspects of the world. Ex. Have you

smelled the wumpus anywhere?

Request or Command:
other agents to perform actions. It can be seen as impolite to make direct requests, so often an indirect speech act (a request in the form of a statement or question) is used instead. Ex. I could use some help carrying this or Could you please help me

carry this?

Difficulties with Communication

Speaking:
When is a speech act called for? Which speech act, out of all the possibilities is the right one? Nondeterminism Understanding:

Given ambiguous inputs, what state of the world could have created these inputs?

Fundamentals of Language
Formal Languages: Languages that are invented and are rigidly defined. A set of strings where each string is a sequence of symbols taken from a finite set called the terminal symbols.
Lisp, C++, first order logic, etc.

Natural Languages: Languages that humans use to talk to one another.

Chinese, Danish, English, etc.

Component Steps of Communication

Three steps take place in the speaker:
Intention: S want H to believe P Generation: S chooses words W Synthesis: S utters the words W

Four steps take place in the hearer:

Perception: H perceives W1 (ideally, W = W1) Analysis: H infers that W1 has possible meanings P1, , Pn Disambiguation: H infers that S intended to convey Pi (ideally, Pi = P) Incorporation: H decides to believe Pi (or rejects it if it is out of line with what H already believes)

Models of Communication
Encoded Message Model:
Speaker encodes a proposition into words or signs. The hearer then tries to decode this message to retrieve the original proposition. The meaning in the speakers head, the message that gets transmitted, and the interpretation that hearer arrives at are all the same, unless there is noise during communication, or an error in encoding or decoding occurs.

Situated Language Model:

Created because of limitations on the encoded message model. The meaning of the message depends on both the words, and the situation. Ex. Diamond refers to one thing when the subject is jewelry, and a completely different meaning when the subject is baseball.

Overview
Communication as Action

Types of Communicating Agents

A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Types of Communicating Agents

Communicating using Tell and ask: Agents share a common internal representation language Agents are capable of communicating without any external language at all
Communicating using Formal Language: Agents make no assumptions about each others internal language Agents share a communication language that is a subset of English

Tell and Ask

Communication with Tell and Ask
Agent A KB KB Agent B

Percepts
Reasoning

Actions

Percepts
Reasoning

Actions

TELL(KBB, P) ASK(KBB, Q)

TELL(KBA, P) TELL(KBB, Pit(PA1) At(PA1,[2,3], SA9))

Formal Language
Language

Agent A KB

Language
KB

Agent B

Percepts

Reasoning

Actions

Percepts

Reasoning

Actions

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents

A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English

Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Formal Grammar for a Subset of English

Lexicon: List of allowable vocabulary words.
Noun -> stench | breeze | glitter | nothing | wumpus | pit | pits | gold | east | Verb -> is | see | smell | shoot | feel | stinks | go | grab | carry | kill | turn |

Adjective -> right | left | east | south | back | smelly |

Adverb -> here | there | nearby | ahead | right | left | east | south | back | Pronoun -> me | you | I | it | Name -> John | Mary | Boston | Aristotle | Preposition -> to | in | on | near | Digit -> 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 Article -> the | a | an | Conjunction -> and | or | but |

Formal Grammar for a Subset of English

Grammar: S -> NP VP S -> S Conjunction S NP -> Pronoun -> Noun -> Article Noun -> Digit Digit -> NP PP -> NP RelClause RelClause -> that VP VP -> Verb -> VP NP -> VP Adjective -> VP PP -> VP Adverb

PP -> Preposition NP

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English

Syntactic Analysis (Parsing)

Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Parsing Algorithms
There are many algorithms for parsing
Top-down parsing
Starting with an S and expanding accordingly

Bottom-up parsing Combination of top-down and bottom-up Dynamic programming techniques

Avoids inefficiencies of backtracking

Bottom-up Parse (example)

forest The wumpus is dead Article wumpus is dead Article Noun is dead NP is dead NP Verb dead NP Verb Adjective NP VP Adjective NP VP S subsequence The wumpus Article Noun is dead Verb VP Adjective NP VP rule Article the Noun wumpus NP Article Noun Verb is Adjective dead VP Verb VP Verb Adjective S NP VP

function BOTTOM-UP-PARSE(words, grammar) returns a parse tree forest words loop do if LENGTH(forest) = 1 and CATEGORY(forest[1]) = START(grammar) then return forest[1] else i choose from {1LENGTH(forest)} rule choose from RULES(grammar) n LENGTH(RULE-RHS(rule)) subsequence SUBSEQUENCE(forest, i, i+n-1) if MATCH(subsequence,RULE-RHS(rule)) then forest[ii+n-1] [MAKE-NODE(RULE-LHS(rule) , subsequence)] else fail end

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing)

Definite Clause Grammar (DCG)

Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Definite Clause Grammer (DCG)

Problems with Backus-Naur Form (BNF)
Need meaning Context sensitive

Introduction of First Order Logic

BNF S NP VP Noun stench | First Order Logic NP(s1) /\ VP(s2) S(Append(s1 ,s2)) (s=stench \/ ) Noun(s)

DCG Notation
Positive:
Easy to describe grammars

Negative:
More verbose than BNF

3 Rules:
The notation X Y Z translate as Y(s1) /\ Z(s2) X(Append(s1, s2,).
The notation X word translates as X([word]). The notation X Y | Z | translates as Y(s) \/ Z(s) \/ X(s), where Y is the translation into logic of the DCG expression Y.

Extending the Notation

Non-terminal symbols can be augmented A variable can appear on RHS An arbitrary logical test can appear on RHS
DCG Digit(sem) sem { 0 sem 9 } Number(sem) Digit(sem) Number(sem) Number(sem1) Digit(sem2) {sem = 10 sem1 + sem2} First Order Logic (s=[sem]) Digit(sem , s) Digit(sem , s) Number(sem , s) Number(sem , s1) /\ Digit(sem , s2) /\ sem = 10 sem1 + sem2 Number(sem , Append(s1 , s2)

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG)

Augmenting a Grammar
Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Overgeneration
Simple grammar can overgenerate
Ex: Me smells a stench.

To fix we must understand Cases of English

Nominative - subjective - I Accusative - objective - me

New Rules
Changes needed to handle subjective and objective cases
S NPs Npo VP PP Pronouns Pronouno NPs VP | Pronouns | Noun | Article Noun Pronouno | Noun | Article Noun VP NPo | Preposition NPo I | you | he | she | me | you | him | her |

Use of Augmentation S NP(case) VP PP Pronoun(Subjective) Pronoun(Objective) NP(subjective) VP | Pronoun(case) | Noun | Article Noun VP NP(Objective) | Preposition NP(Objective) I | you | he | she | me | you | him | her |

Verb Subcategorization
Now have slight improvement Must create a sub-categorization list
Verb give smell Subcats [NP , PP] [NP , NP] [NP] [Adjective] [PP] [Adjective] [PP] [NP] [S] Example give the gold in 3,3 to me give me the gold smell a wumpus smell awful smell like a wumpus Is smelly is in 2 2 is a pit Believe the smelly wumpus in 2 2 is dead

is

believe

Parse Tree
S VP([])

NP

VP([NP])
VP([NP,NP]) NP Pronoun NP Article Noun

Pronoun

Verb([NP,NP])

You

give

me

the

gold

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar

Semantic Interpretation
Ambiguity and Disambiguity A Communicating Agent

Semantic Interpretation
Semantic Interpretation: Responsible for combining meanings compositionally to get a set of possible interpretations Formal Languages
Compositional Semantics: The semantics of any phrase is a function of its subphrases
X+Y

We can handle an infinite grammar with a finite set of rules

Natural Languages
Appears to have a noncompositional semantics
The batter hit the ball

Semantic interpretation alone cannot be certain of the right interpretation of a phrase or sentence

Semantic Interpretation
Semantics as DCG Augmentation The same idea used to specify the semantics of numbers and digits can applied to the complete language of mathematics
Exp(sem) > Exp(sem1) Operator(op) Exp(sem2) {sem = Apply(op, sem1, sem2)} Exp(sem) > ( Exp(sem) ) Exp(sem) > Number(sem) Digit(sem) > sem { 0 sem 9 } Number(sem) > Digit(sem) Number(sem) > Number(sem1) Digit(sem2) { sem = 10 sem1 + sem2 } Operator(sem) > sem { sem +,,,}}

The Semantics of E1
Semantic structure is very different from syntactic structure. We use an intermediate form called a quasi-logical form which uses a new construction which we will call a quantified term.
every agent -> [" a Agent(a)]

Every agent smells a wumpus

$ e (e Perceive([" a Agent(a)], [$ w Wumpus(w)],Nose) During(Now, e))

Pragmatic Interpretation
Through semantic interpretation, an agent can perceive a string of words and use a grammar to derive a set of possible semantic interpretations.
Now we address the problem of completing the interpretation by adding information about the current situation
Information which is noncompositional and contextdependant

Pragmatic Interpretation
Indexicals: Phrases that refer directly to the current situation
I am in Boston today.

Anaphora: Phrases referring to objects that have been mentioned previously

John was hungry. He entered a restaurant. After John proposed to Marsha, they found a preacher and got married. For the honeymoon, they went to Hawaii.

Deciding which reference is the right one is a part of disambiguation.

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation

Ambiguity and Disambiguity

A Communicating Agent

Ambiguity and Disambiguation

The biggest problem in communicative exchange is that most utterances are ambiguous.
Squad helps dog bite victim. Red-hot star to wed astronomer. Helicopter powered by human flies. Once-sagging cloth diaper industry saved by full dumps.

Ambiguity
Lexical Ambiguity
a word has more than one meaning

Syntactic Ambiguity (Structural Ambiguity)

more than one possible parse for the phrase

Semantic Ambiguity
follows from lexical or syntactic ambiguity

Referential Ambiguity
semantic ambiguity caused by anaphoric expressions

Ambiguity
Pragmatic Ambiguity
Speaker and hearer disagree on what the current situation is.

Local Ambiguity
A substring can be parsed several ways.

Vagueness
Natural languages are also vague
Its hot outside.

Disambiguation
Disambiguation is a question of diagnosis.
Models of the world are used to provide possible interpretations of a speech act.
Models of the speaker Models of the hearer

It is difficult to pick the right interpretation because there may be several right ones.

Disambiguation
In general, disambiguation requires the combination of four models:
the the the the world model mental model language model acoustic model

Natural language often uses deliberate ambiguity.

Most language understanding programs ignore this possibility

Disambiguation
Context free grammars do not provide a very useful language model.
Probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs)
each rewrite rule has a probability associated with it

S > NP VP S > S Conjunction S

(0.9) (0.1)

Overview
Communication as Action Types of Communicating Agents A Formal Grammar for a Subset of English Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) Augmenting a Grammar Semantic Interpretation Ambiguity and Disambiguity

A Communicating Agent

A Communicating Agent
How does this all fit in to an agent that can communicate?
Start with the wumpus world robot slave.

Extend the grammar to accept commands

Go east Go to 2 2

Identify the kind (i.e, command or statement) of speech as part of the quasi-logical form.

A Communicating Agent
Rules for commands and statements
S(Command(rel(Hearer)) > VP(rel) S(Statement(rel(obj)) > NP(obj) VP(rel)

Rules for acknowledgements

S(Acknowledge(sem)) > Ack(sem) Ack(True) > yes Ack(True) > OK Ack(False) > no

Summary
Agents send signals to each other using a speech act. All animals use some conventional signs to communicate, but humans use language in a more sophisticated way that enables them to communicate much more Formal language theory and phrase structure grammars are useful tools for dealing with some aspects of natural language Communication involves
three steps by the speaker
intention, generation and synthesis

four steps by the hearer

perception, analysis, disambiguation and incorporation

Summary
The encoded message model of communication says that a speaker encodes a representation of a proposition into language, and the hearer decodes the message to uncover the proposition The situated language model states that the meaning of a message is a function of both the message and the situation in which it occurs. Augmenting a grammar allows us to handle many problems
Definite Clause Grammar (DCG) is an extension of BNF that allows for augmentations

There are many algorithms for parsing strings.

I.e. bottom up, top down, combination, and dynamic

Summary
Pragmatic interpretation takes the current situation into account to determine the effect of an utterance in context
Disambiguation is the process of deciding which of the possible interpretations is the one that the speaker intended to convey.

The End

Bibliography
Norvig, Peter and Russell, Stuart, 1995. Artificial Intelligence A Modern Approach, Prentice-Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.