This paper illustrates the technologies of user next intent prediction with a concept knowledge graph. The system has been deployed on the Web at Alipay, serving more than 100 million daily active users. To explicitly characterize user intent, we propose AlipayKG, which is an offline concept knowledge graph in the Life-Service domain modeling the historical behaviors of users, the rich content interacted by users and the relations between them. We further introduce a Transformer-based model which integrates expert rules from the knowledge graph to infer the online user's next intent. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system can effectively enhance the performance of the downstream tasks while retaining explainability.

A significant barrier to progress in data-driven approaches to building dialog systems is the lack of high quality, goal-oriented conversational data. To help satisfy this elementary requirement, we introduce the initial release of the Taskmaster-1 dataset which includes 13,215 task-based dialogs comprising six domains. Two procedures were used to create this collection, each with unique advantages. The first involves a two-person, spoken "Wizard of Oz" (WOz) approach in which trained agents and crowdsourced workers interact to complete the task while the second is "self-dialog" in which crowdsourced workers write the entire dialog themselves. We do not restrict the workers to detailed scripts or to a small knowledge base and hence we observe that our dataset contains more realistic and diverse conversations in comparison to existing datasets. We offer several baseline models including state of the art neural seq2seq architectures with benchmark performance as well as qualitative human evaluations. Dialogs are labeled with API calls and arguments, a simple and cost effective approach which avoids the requirement of complex annotation schema. The layer of abstraction between the dialog model and the service provider API allows for a given model to interact with multiple services that provide similar functionally. Finally, the dataset will evoke interest in written vs. spoken language, discourse patterns, error handling and other linguistic phenomena related to dialog system research, development and design.

Google Assistant's latest trick is ordering movie tickets. It's a partnership with Fandango that enables the digital helper to assist you with movie night decisions. You can buy tickets with your voice, or you can ask for general showtimes in your area, along with finding out a movie's cast and maybe even watching a trailer. Google says picking assigned seats is pretty simple too. It was only a matter of time before Google brought Assistant into the movie mix.

The Echo Show is the first of Amazon's Alexa-enabled devices to feature a screen, and to be honest, it's pretty darn cool. While the Show may be the most expensive* of the Echo lineup, ringing in at $229.99, it includes a slew of features and skills you can't get from the other Echo devices, thanks to the 7-inch touchscreen and camera. So why would you want to choose the more expensive Show over the new Echo ($99.99) or the more affordable Dot (on sale for $29.99)? There are several Show-specific skills that are both fun and functional. From watching HD movie trailers to making video calls, these are our picks for the top 10 skills you definitely need to try with your Amazon Echo Show.

In an ordinary conference room in this city of start-ups, a group of engineers sat down to order pizza in an entirely new way. "Get me a pizza from Pizz'a Chicago near my office," one of the engineers said into his smartphone. It was their first real test of Viv, the artificial-intelligence technology that the team had been quietly building for more than a year. Everyone was a little nervous. Then, a text from Viv piped up: "Would you like toppings with that?"

Apple has a vision of a future in which the disembodied voice of Siri is your constant companion. It goes something like this: You arrive home at the end of a long day and plop down on the couch. A beer in one hand, your phone in the other, you say, "Siri, open Netflix and play The IT Crowd." Midway through the program, you feel a draft. Siri politely tells you the temperature, and asks if you'd like it raised.

Software giant Google is beginning an aggressive foray into hardware production with the launch Tuesday of a smartphone and other devices that will bring the company into direct competition with other leading tech firms, including its longtime partner Samsung. The launch signals a major shift for one of the world's most profitable companies as it seeks to adapt to a technology landscape increasingly dominated by mobile and other connected hardware. Google must find a way, analysts say, to keep acquiring user data for targeting ads as Web search -- traditionally done from laptop or desktop computers -- is supplanted by newer technologies. Google's new smartphone, the Pixel, will employ artificial-intelligence technology that users can converse with, allowing them to sidestep keyboards as they access online information and make purchases such as movie tickets, say people familiar with the company's plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal information ahead of its official release. The company also plans to release other new hardware, including a voice-based assistant for the home to rival Amazon's Echo and a virtual-reality headset to rival Facebook's Oculus.

Following a similar business tactic that drug dealers have employed for ages, developer Blizzard is giving folks who check out the upcoming Warcraft movie a free, full, copy of World of Warcraft. That's assuming you see the movie at certain Regal Cinemas (which is running a promo to send folks to BlizzCon, as well), United Artists Theaters or Edwards Theaters here in the United States. The promo is supported abroad too, with Australia, Brazil, Europe, Southeast Asia and New Zealand all getting in on the action.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Two of the minds behind Siri are set to unveil a new AI-powered digital assistant on Monday, May 9. Specifically, The Washington Post reports that Siri co-founders Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer will take the wraps off of Viv, an AI assistant said to be capable of handling much more complex tasks than its predecessor. Essentially, Viv will set itself apart from Siri by working with natural language to complete a complex series of tasks rather than taking one at a time. For example, you could ask Viv to make a restaurant reservation and buy movie tickets in one command, then Viv would carry out those tasks without sending you to an outside app. Viv could also react on the fly and make recommendations if, say, the movie is sold out. Comparatively, performing the same tasks with an AI assistant like Siri would require you to move between different apps with multiple commands. Of course, all of this requires some heavy integration with third-party services.