Patent ID: 11941365
Assignee: NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A response selecting apparatus for outputting one or a plurality of responses to an input question, which is inputted a question, the response selecting apparatus comprising:
a recording medium recording question/answer pairs, which are pairs of a question and an answer, and a learned translation model for obtaining an answer from a question; and
processing circuitry configured to:
execute a document search processing which uses the input question as input, searches for a question/answer pair by a search method determined in advance from the question/answer pairs recorded in the recording medium, and outputs the searched question/answer pair as a search-result question/answer pair;
execute a score calculation processing which uses the input question and the answer of the search-result question/answer pair as input, obtains a translation likelihood, which is a numerical value based on a probability of obtaining the answer from the input question, by using the translation model, and calculates a score of each of the search-result question/answer pair with respect to the input question based on the translation likelihood; and
execute a ranking processing which selects a predetermined number of the search-result question/answer pair in an order of appropriateness indicated by the score and outputs the answer of the selected search-result question/answer pair as a response;

wherein
the translation model is learned in accordance with a degree indicated by an index by using a pair of a question and an answer associated with the index indicating the degree of how much the answer sounds like a character, and
the index indicating the degree of how much the answer sounds like the character includes: a first index evaluated by a person other than the character himself/herself, a second index indicating that the answer is responded by the character himself/herself, and a third index indicating that the character himself/herself certified that the respond sounds like the character.