UbuntuWorld 1.0 LTS Ñ A Platform for Automated Problem Solving and Troubleshooting in the Ubuntu OS

No. 2 (2017): The Twenty-Ninth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference

Volume

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 31

IAAI Emerging Application Papers

In this paper we present UbuntuWorld 1.0 LTS Ñ a platform for developing automated technical support agents in the Ubuntu operating system. Specifically, we propose to use the Bash terminal as a simulator of the Ubuntu environment for a learning-based agent, and demonstrate the usefulness of adopting reinforcement learning (RL) techniques for basic problem solving and troubleshooting in this environment. We provide a plug-and-play interface to the simulator as a python package where different types of agents can be plugged in and evaluated, and provide pathways for integrating data from online support forums like Ask Ubuntu into an automated agentÕs learning process. Finally, we show that the use of this data significantly improves the agentÕs learning efficiency. We believe that this platform can be adopted as a real-world test bed for research on automated technical support.

10.1609/aaai.v31i2.19091