EECS 498 Conversational Artificial Intelligence• Nikhil and Sahil: TBA 6. Course Administration...

EECS 498Conversational Artificial Intelligence

Principles and Practice

Dr. Kevin Leach; Professor Jason Mars; Brian Yang; Oliver Strong1

Instructional Assistants

• Sahil Farishta, sahilf@umich.edu • Nikhil Devraj, devrajn@umich.edu

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For Today

• What is this course?• What isn’t this course?• What is Conversational AI?• How does it work?• How do you build conversational AI?• What are we doing in this course?

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Course Administration

• Course Meetings:• MW 1:30-3 PM in DOW1010

• No required textbook

• Office Hours• Kevin: Wednesday 3-4pm (BBB 4705), or by appointment• Brian/Oliver: by appointment (Google Calendar signup)• Nikhil and Sahil: TBA

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Course Administration

• Course Website: https://dijkstra.eecs.umich.edu/eecs498

• Piazza: https://piazza.com/umich/winter2020/eecs498• Sign up if you are not already• Please use Piazza before emailing instructors• Discussion is crucial!

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Piazza

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence

• “OK Google, teach me computer science.”

• Conversational AI is the use of software to empower computers with the ability to complete tasks or hold natural language conversations with humans.

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence

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Major Design Experience and Special Topics

• This course counts as an MDE elective• You may be required to take EECS 498 and TCHNCLCM 497 concurrently• Consult undergraduate advising office for more information (BBB 2808)

• This course is almost exclusively project-based• An opportunity for high impact!

• This is a 400-level EECS Special Topics course• More independence required

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Major Design Experience (MDE)

• Decide on teams early!• Up to 8 people per group (at least 5)

• Grading is almost exclusively based on project output• Design• Presentations• Demonstrations• Robust code and engineering

• You will be working with a real company! (Clinc)14

Grading

• Approximate breakdown• Project pitch (5%)• Scoping Review (5%)• Sprint Reviews (40%)• Cooperative Testing (10%)• Final Presentation / Demonstration (20%)• Demonstration Video (10%)• Participation (10%)• Extra Credit (up to 5%)

• TL;DR: 100% project15

Attendance

• We’ll record lectures and put them up, but you are expected to attend sprint reviews in person.

• Receiving and incorporating feedback from others is crucial• Participation is 10% of your grade

16Crede et al. “Class Attendance in College: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Relationship of Class Attendance With Grades and Student Characteristics.” Review of Educational Research, 2010. Vol. 80. DOI: 10.3102/0034654310362998

Structure and Style of the Course

• Special Topics electives are inherently less structured

• Learn by doing and sharing• Reviewing and analyzing what we build, together• Ambition is required

• Tools: Clinc Conversational AI Platform17

What this class is• A unique opportunity to

• Build a high-impact conversational AI project

• Learn to use a robust, enterprise-grade conversational AI platform (Clinc)

• Work with a team of students and conversational AI experts on a large, complex software system

• Gain feedback, coaching, and advice that will positively impact your future career

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What this class is not

• This is not an AI Foundations course• This is not a Machine Learning

course• This is not a math course• This is not an introductory

programming course• This is not a course with spoon-fed

projects

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Our commitment to you

• We will give you advising and coaching based on real-world experience that will help develop your career

• We will give you feedback to help make your project the best resume booster it can be!

• We will give you opportunities to pitch ideas, develop them, demonstrate them, and integrate them in a real, customer-facing platform

• We will expect your ambition and excitement during this semester

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Artificial Intelligence

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence

• Artificial Intelligence –“intelligence exhibited by machines or software” (Wikipedia)

Broadly, AI seeks to emulate cognitive processes that humans have.

- Game AI- Optical Character Recognition (OCR)- Machine learning- Natural language understanding (this course)

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence

• Artificial Intelligence –“intelligence exhibited by machines or software” (Wikipedia)

• Conversational –“interactive communication between two or more people” (Wikipedia)

• Conversational Artificial Intelligence –Enabling a machine to have natural conversations

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So how does it actually work?

• We use an AI engine to help understand natural language that is provided by the user.

• Once we understand what the user wants to do, we use business logic to help complete the user’s request

• Once the business logic completes the request, we construct a response that is given to the user

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Conversational AI: Example workflow

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Automated Speech Recognition

(ASR)

Spoken language (i.e., sound)

utterance

“Please pay Dr. Leach $1000.”

Natural language understanding

Intent Classification:transfer_money

Slot mapping:recipient: “Dr. Leach”amount: “$1000”

Business Logic:

Deduct $1000 from accountAdd $1000 to recipient account

Response Generation

Template Responses

“OK, I gave Dr. Leach $1000.”

“Sorry fam, you don’t have

enough cash”

Text-to-speech (TTS)

Conversational AI: Example workflow

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Automated Speech Recognition

(ASR)

Spoken language (i.e., sound)

utterance

“Please pay Dr. Leach $1000.”

Natural language understanding

Intent Classification:transfer_money

Slot mapping:recipient: “Dr. Leach”amount: “$1000”

Business Logic:

Deduct $1000 from accountAdd $1000 to recipient account

Response Generation

Template Responses

“OK, I gave Dr. Leach $1000.”

“Sorry fam, you don’t have

enough cash”

Text-to-speech (TTS)

Applications of Conversational AI

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Applications of Conversational AI

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence

• Goal: empower computers to have meaningful, natural, and actionable conversations with humans

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Conversational Artificial Intelligence: Reality

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Applications of Conversational AI: Task-based

• “Turn on my ceiling fan.”• “Accelerate to 9001 miles per hours.”• “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”

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Applications of Conversational AI: Chatbots(Dialog Systems)• User: Hello.• Bot: How are you?• User: I’m good, how about you?• Bot: Good! What are you up to?• User: Enjoying EECS498.• Bot: Awesome possum.

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Applications of Conversational AI: Chatbots

• User: Hello.• Bot: How are you?• User: I’m good, how about you?• Bot: Good! What are you up to?• User: Enjoying EECS498.• Bot: Awesome possum.

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Applications of Conversational AI: QA Systems

• “How do I turn on cruise control?”

• “Who is Kebert Xela?”

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Applications of Conversational AI: Summary

• Task-oriented (intent-based)• Chatbot / Dialog systems• QA

• Can you think of other broad areas?

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Let’s brainstorm

• In small groups, come up with a few ideas for conversational AI applications

• Doesn’t matter if they’re task-oriented, chatbot, or QA style

• In a perfect world, what would you want to be able to talk to a computer about? What would it be capable of doing?

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So what are we actually doing?

• In this class, you will• Work on a project in a manner that mimics industrial development

• Identifying problems• Designing solutions• Communicating ideas• Incorporating feedback• Delivering demonstrations and prototypes

• We will adopt an agile development methodology• Roughly every 2 weeks, we will have a sprint where you complete some deliverable

• Note: Some lecture slots will be used for group presentations/demos

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So what are we actually doing?

• Aside from the project, you will:• Learn the basics of ML, NLP, and conversational AI

• Learn how to use an enterprise-grade conversational AI platform, Clinc

• Learn about cutting-edge NLP and AI research

• Gain coaching from industrial practitioners

• Get career advice

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So what are we actually doing?

• Action items:• Form teams by September 16!

• Identify teammates through class or piazza• Email Jason and me a list of email IDs of your team

• Turn in project proposal by September 23• Slide deck that describes a problem that conversational AI can solve• Describe how conversational AI could solve it

• Present project proposals during 9/23 and 9/25• Get feedback from instructors and classmates

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Project Ideas: Last semesters

• Groceries: Find ingredients in a grocery store• Recipes: find and walk through steps of a recipe• Housing: search home listings• Travel: create travel itineraries

• Spotify Playlist curation: create playlists meeting certain criteria• Mental health curation: chatbot to help users with panic attacks• Code summarization: ask GitHub to explain code to you• Accessible computing: Summarize images for blind users• Homework help: Explain complicated math equations

• (hint: don’t try an EECS advisor)

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