System and method for implementing an artificially intelligent virtual assistant using machine learning

An online method for implementing a virtual conversational implement, the method comprising:

• using one or more networked computer hardware servers that implement a remote virtual conservational service:
• implementing a competency machine learning classifier that is trained to produce one or more classification labels for the user query that identifies a likely area of aptitude to which the user query relates and that:
• responsive to an input of textual input of a user query posed by a user to a virtual conversational implement associated with the remote virtual conversational service, produces a distinct competency classification label that is selected from a plurality of distinct competency classification labels and that is assigned to the textual input of the user query, wherein each of the plurality of distinct competency classification labels relates to a distinct conversational area of aptitude of the remote virtual conversational service;
• a cognate query machine learning classifier that is trained to produce a cognate query classification label for the user query when there is a probability that the user query comprises a follow-on or closely-related query to one or more historical queries posed by the user at one or more earlier times and that:
• responsive to the input of the textual input of the user query, produces a cognate query classification label indicating a likelihood or probability that the user query comprises a follow-on query related to a historical user query posed by the same user to the remote conversational service at an earlier time;
• a slot identification system that:
• responsive to input of the textual input of the user query, groups distinct portions of the textual input into a plurality of distinct segments of text of the textual input of the user query;
• a slot machine learning classifier that is trained to produce for each segment of the user query slot classification labels that operably map to one or more computer-executable operations and that:
• responsive to input of the plurality of distinct segments of text, [i] produces a distinct slot classification label for each of the plurality of distinct segments of text that is selected from a plurality of distinct slot classification labels available under the distinct competency classification label assigned to the user query and [ii] assigns each produced distinct slot classification label to each of the plurality of distinct segments of text, respectively;
• a slot extraction system that:
• responsive to an input of the distinct slot classification labels, converts each of the distinct slot classification labels to a distinct computer-executable operation;
• wherein the remote virtual conversational service:
• executes the distinct computer-executable operation for each of the distinct slot classification labels to produce slot data for constructing a response to the user query;
• responsive to an input of the cognate query classification label, performs a search a fast-accessible memory of the remote virtual conversation service for a cognate historical user query posed by the user at a time prior to the user query, wherein the fast-accessible memory stores one or more historical queries of the user that were posed to the conversational service most recent in time;
• wherein performing the search includes:
• using the competency classification label to generate a first query filter that filters historical queries of the user found in the fast-accessible memory to identify a subset of historical queries having the competency classification label;
• using each of the slot classification labels to generate a second query filter that filters the subset of historical queries to identify the cognate historical query;
• in response to identifying the cognate historical query, retrieves a historical response to the cognate historical query;
• generates a response to the user query by replacing one or more slots of the historical response to the cognate historical query of the user with the slot data;
• and
• communicates, via a user computing device, the generated response to the user query.