User involvement in collaborative decision-making dialog systems

Abstract

Mixed-initiative assistants are systems that support humans in their decision-making and problem-solving capabilities in a collaborative manner. Such systems have to integrate various artificial intelligence capabilities, such as knowledge representation, problem solving and planning, learning, discourse and dialog, and human-computer interaction. These systems aim at solving a given problem autonomously for the user, yet involve the user into the planning process for a collaborative decision-making, to respect e.g. user preferences. However, how the user is involved into the planning can be framed in various ways, using different involvement strategies, varying e.g. in their degree of user freedom. Hence, here we present results of a study examining the effects of different user involvement strategies on the user experience in a mixed-initiative system.