US 9,870,356 B2Granted

Techniques for inferring the unknown intents of linguistic items

AssigneeMicrosoft Technology Licensing, LLC

InventorsDilek Hakkani-Tür, Fethiye Asli Celikyilmaz, Larry P. Heck, Gokhan Tur, Yangfeng Ji

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Abstract

Functionality is described herein for determining the intents of linguistic items (such as queries), to produce intent output information. For some linguistic items, the functionality deterministically assigns intents to the linguistic items based on known intent labels, which, in turn, may be obtained or derived from a knowledge graph or other type of knowledge resource. For other linguistic items, the functionality infers the intents of the linguistic items based on selection log data (such as click log data provided by a search system). In some instances, the intent output information may reveal new intents that are not represented by the known intent labels. In one implementation, the functionality can use the intent output information to train a language understanding model.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method implemented by one or more computing devices, the method comprising:

receiving input data, the input data comprising linguistic items including:
a first set of linguistic items with known intent labels, the known intent labels representing known relations between entities provided by a knowledge resource;
and
a second set of linguistic items without known intent labels provided by the knowledge resource;
determining intents for the linguistic items in the input data to produce intent output information, the determining comprising:
when a respective linguistic item corresponds to a member of the first set, deterministically assigning a respective known intent to the respective linguistic item based at least on a respective known intent label associated with the respective linguistic item;
and
when the respective linguistic item corresponds to a member of the second set, inferring the intent associated with the respective linguistic item based at least on selection log data;
and
storing the intent output information in a data store,
the determining including discovering a new intent for an individual linguistic item of the second set that identifies an individual entity represented in the knowledge resource, the new intent identifying a new relation for the individual entity that is not included in the known relations provided by the knowledge resource,
the selection log data reflecting actions of users associated with using various linguistic items with the known intents and with the new intent.

9 more elements

A computer system comprising:

a processing device;
and
a computer readable storage medium storing computer readable instructions which, when executed by the processing device, cause the processing device to:
receive input data, the input data comprising a plurality of linguistic items, individual linguistic items corresponding to one or more words submitted by a user and being associated with a click selection made by the user in response to submitting the one or more words;
and
use a generative model to determine intents for at least some of the linguistic items in the input data, the intents including at least one previously-known intent and at least one new intent discovered by the generative model,
the generative model representing user actions based on a process which involves drawing a specified intent for a specified linguistic item based at least on a distribution of intents, the distribution representing probabilities associated with the at least one previously-known intent and the at least one new intent discovered by the generative model.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.