MULTIMODAL INTERACTIVE QUESTION ANSWERING

摘要

HITIQA is an interactive question answering technology designed to allow intelligence analysts and other users of information systems to pose questions in natural language and obtain relevant answers, or the assistance they require in order to perform their tasks. Our objective in HITIQA is to allow the user to submit exploratory, analytical questions, such as "What has been Russia's reaction to U.S. bombing of Kosovo?" The distinguishing property of such questions is that one cannot generally anticipate what might constitute the answer. While certain types of things may be expected (e.g., diplomatic statements), the answer is heavily conditioned by what information is in fact available on the topic. From a practical viewpoint, analytical questions are often underspecified, thus casting a broad net on a space of possible answers. Therefore, clarification dialogue is often needed to negotiate with the user the ex-act scope and intent of the question.