Counterfactual annotated dialogues for conversational computing

A computer system, comprising:

• a logic subsystem;
• and
• a storage subsystem holding instructions executable by the logic subsystem to:
• maintain, in the storage subsystem, a branching dialogue representing a plurality of multi-turn conversations each including a plurality of turns, wherein a turn indicates one or both of a conversational computing interface action and a conversation event, the branching dialogue including a shared prefix of turns common to the plurality of multi-turn conversations and at least two different counterfactual branches descending from the shared prefix of turns, each different counterfactual branch including one or more descendent turns corresponding to a different multi-turn conversation of the plurality of multi-turn conversations;
• and
• responsive to receiving a command to modify the branching dialogue:
• traverse the branching dialogue in the computer-readable format to locate a previously-defined multi-turn conversation, the previously-defined multi-turn conversation represented by the shared prefix of turns and a particular counterfactual branch including descendent turns corresponding to the previously-defined multi-turn conversation;
• and
• record a modification to the branching dialogue based on the received instruction and the previously-defined multi-turn conversation.

A method of configuring a conversational computing interface, comprising:

• maintaining, in a dialogue store data structure including a plurality of nodes, a branching dialogue representing a plurality of multi-turn conversations, wherein:
• each multi-turn conversation is represented by a plurality of nodes, each node representing a turn in the multi-turn conversation, and each turn indicating one or both of a conversational computing interface action and a conversation event;
• the branching dialogue includes a shared prefix of turns common to the plurality of multi-turn conversations and at least two different counterfactual branches descending from the shared prefix of turns, each different counterfactual branch including one or more descendent turns corresponding to a different multi-turn conversation of the plurality of multi-turn conversations, and
• each node representing a descendent turn in a multi-turn conversation includes a pointer indicating a parent node from which that node descends in the dialogue store data structure;
• and
• responsive to receiving a command to modify the branching dialogue, traversing the dialogue store data structure in a computer-readable format to retrieve a particular multi-turn conversation of the plurality of multi-turn conversations, the particular multi-turn conversation represented by the shared prefix of turns and a particular counterfactual branch including descendent turns corresponding to the particular multi-turn conversation;
• and
• recording a modification to the branching dialogue based on the received command and the particular multi-turn conversation.