MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions The START Information Access System...

MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions

The START InformationAccess System

Boris Katzhttp://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infolab/


Finding information on line

Two Approaches: 1. Keyword search (search engines, e.g., AltaVista)

2. Natural language processing

The Problem:


What’s Wrong with Keyword Search?


What’s Right About Natural Language Processing?


What’s Wrong with Natural Language Processing (today)?

1. Too hardFull-text NL understanding still beyond reach•Intersentential reference

•Paraphrasing

•Summarization

•Common sense implication2. Too slow3. Not all information is language

Most Web resources are not textual•Maps and Images

•Sound and Video

•Multimedia

Web resources are distributed across numerous non-traditional databases


START (SynTactic Analysis using Reversible Transformations) provides multimedia information access using natural language.

Natural languageNatural language is human language. You don’t have to learn a special language to use START. Ask your questions in English; enter information using English.

Multimedia access using natural language annotationsSTART lets you use English to access any kind of information: text, pictures, movies, and more.

“Just the right information”START gives you the answer you want without including a thousand others.

Virtual collaborationSTART retrieves information from its own knowledge base and from databases all over the Web.

What is START?


Natural language is human language. You don’t have to learn a special language to use START. Ask your questions in English; enter information using English

Natural Language


START lets you use English to access any kind of information: text, pictures, movies, and more.

Multimedia Access Using Natural Language Annotations


START gives you the answer you want without including a thousand other answers.

Just the Right Information


START retrieves information from its own knowledge base and from databases all over the Web.

Virtual Collaboration


Bridge the gap between our ability to analyze natural language sentences and other information and our desire to access the huge amount of data now available on the Web.

Annotations are collections of natural language sentences and phrases that describe the content of various information segments.

START• analyzes these annotations • creates the necessary representational structures

• produces special pointers to the information segments summarized by the annotations.

Natural Language Annotations


STARTServer

STARTServer

STARTServer

Document

Natural Language Annotations

Annotation

InformationProvider

InformationSeeker

(negotiation)

(submitted)

(retrieved)

Xxx xx xxxx xxxx xxxxx x xxxxxx x xxx x xxx

Xxx xxxx xxx xxxx x

“Neptune was discoveredusing mathematics.”

+

Document

Xxx xx xxxx xxxx xxxxx x xxxxxx x xxx x xxx

Xxx xxxx xxx xxxx x

Question

“How was Neptune discovered?”

STARTServer


HPKB

POTUS

Fortune500

Uniform Access

START

NL questions

Multimediaresponses

OmnibaseQueries

Data

• Local knowledge base of ternary expressions• Core vocabulary

• Uniform interface to multiple database formats (Web, text, etc.)• Extended lexicon

U.S. Census

IMDb


How START WorksWeb browser

START

Parser

Matcher

English

Databaseof T-exps

T-exps from KB

Generator

HTML

English

Annotations

Scripts

Nativeknowledge

Omnibase(externalknowledge)

Scripts

WWW

PotusIMDb

World Factbook

U.S. Census

Input T-exps

MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions The START Information Access System...

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