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Marvin - A Conversational
Agent Based Interface for
the Study of Information
Sciences
Nives Mikelic Preradovic, Sanja Kisicek, Damir Boras
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and
Social Sciences, Department of Information Sciences
nmikelic@ffzg.hr, smatic@ffzg.hr, dboras@ffzg.hr
Outline
 Who is Marvin?
 Marvin’s knowledge base and reply
structure
 Evaluation
 Future work
Who is Marvin?
Who is Marvin?
 Has a "brain the size of a planet"
which he is seldom able to use
 No task he could be given would
occupy even the tiniest fraction of his
vast intellect
Why Marvin?
 Aim was to build a virtual character that:
 Is capable of engaging our undergraduate
students in a meaningful conversation
 Has the ability to parse NLQ and, by referring to
a knowledge base, generate NLA
 Will increase the students' interest in the Study
of Information Sciences, ease the search for
particular information and boost satisfaction with
the presentation of information
 Aim was not to
 design a tutor that would teach particular
subject matter
Marvin’s knowledge base
 AIML: category (pattern,template, context:
that, topic)
 Reqursion:
 Marvin produces the same reply to different
query formulations that share the same or
similar meaning (teach-lecture-instruct)
 AIML templates activated by the
appearance of a keyword anywhere in the
input
 Keywords: the most probable user's queries
 Knowledge base
Marvin’s reply
 Tries to boost communication with the
user posing the questions
 Topic change triggers the content of
the reply
 Marvin attempts to follow the normal
flow and nature of the communication
 Marvin’s replies are enhanced with
comments designed to convince the
user that Marvin is a student himself
Evaluation
 The database was checked for accuracy,
interpretation and relevance to the types
and the level of questions being asked
 50 inputs and answers per evaluator / each
evaluator spent 30 minutes on average
chatting with Marvin
 Two perspectives: competent information
scientist / pretend bachelor student
perspective
 Limitations: multi clause units, exchanges
that range over more than one turn
Evaluation
 the depth of knowledge too narrow to
cope with open-ended conversations
with humans
 database should be improved with
more factual world knowledge
 Currently: no actual knowledge of what
it is talking about, avoidance strategy
 He or it?
Future work
 Modify Marvin to take on the
personality and knowledge base of
the key information theorists
 Sensitive to the knowledge levels of
student users and opened to
explanatory questions
 Use Wikipedia information to build its
conversations and offer links to
articles in the field of IS