Agent Tasks in Collaborative Intermediary Interaction

Contents

We draw attention to a difference in use of the notion of domain task in mainstream AI and European research on dialogue planning. An integrated approach calls for an adaptation of notions of task dialogue and information seeking dialogue. We make a distinction based on the execution state of domain actions and the roles played by the agents involved. It is argued that the observed differential emphasis on user and system task domain is related to preferences for intentional versus conversational perspectives on utterance sequencing. On the basis of a review of several current approaches to dialogue planning, we list a few consequences for the design of a dialogue manager.