SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AN INTERACTIVE QUERY UTILIZING A SIMULATED PERSONALITY
20170269946 · 2017-09-21
Inventors
Cpc classification
G10L2021/105
PHYSICS
International classification
Abstract
A system and method provides for an interactive query comprising a first input module capable of receiving input for creating a simulated personality for a first user. An expert system is capable of creating and storing the simulated personality. An output module is used for presenting the simulated personality to a second user. An interactive query module is capable of allowing the second user to communicate with the simulated personality of the first user.
Claims
1. A system for system for an interactive query, comprising: a first input module capable of receiving input for creating a simulated personality for a first user; an expert system capable of creating and storing the simulated personality; an output module for presenting the simulated personality to a second user; and an interactive query module capable of allowing the second user to communicate with the simulated personality of the first user.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first input module comprises an interactive question and answer module for receiving input regarding personality traits of the first user.
3. The system of claim 2, wherein the input module is further configured for receiving input for creating plurality if simulated personalities for the first user, each of the plurality of simulated personalities relating to a personality of the user at a time t.sub.n.
4. The system of claim 3, wherein the interactive query module is further configured for allowing the second user to select which of the simulated personalities of the first user with which to communicate.
5. The system of claim 4, wherein each time t.sub.n represents different age of the first user.
6. The system of claim 1, the interactive query module is e-mail based.
7. The system of claim 1, the interactive query module comprises a two-dimensional animated image of the first user.
8. The system of claim 1, the interactive query module comprises a holographic animated image of the first user.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user comprises a relative of the first user postmortem.
10. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user comprises a potential dating match of the first user.
11. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user comprises a potential employer of the first user.
12. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user comprises a potential advertiser to the first user.
13. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user comprises a buyer of a gift for the first user.
14. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user comprises a automobile dealer and the first user comprises a potential buyer of an automobile.
15. A method for an interactive query, comprising: receiving input for creating a simulated personality for a first user; creating and storing the simulated personality; presenting the simulated personality to a second user; and allowing the second user to communicate with the simulated personality of the first user.
16. The method of claim 15, comprising receiving input regarding personality traits of the first user.
17. The method of claim 16, comprising receiving input for creating plurality if simulated personalities for the first user, each of the plurality of simulated personalities relating to a personality of the user at a time t.sub.n.
18. The method of claim 17, comprising allowing the second user to select which of the simulated personalities of the first user with which to communicate.
19. The method of claim 17, wherein each time t.sub.n represents different age of the first user.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
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DETAIL DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
[0033] The following detailed description is of the best currently contemplated modes of carrying out exemplary embodiments of the invention. The description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is made merely for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention, since the scope of the invention is best defined by the appended claims.
[0034] Various inventive features are described below that can each be used independently of one another or in combination with other features.
[0035] Fundamental characteristics of personality of a user 100 can include: (1) consistency—essentially, any user act in the similar ways in a variety of situations and there is a recognizable order and regularity to behaviors, (2) psychological and physiological—personality is a psychological construct, but it can be influenced by biological processes and needs, (3) behaviors and actions—personality not only influence how a user respond in a particular environment, but also causes a user to act in certain ways, (4) multiple expressions—personality is displayed in more than just behavior. It can also be seen in thoughts, feelings, close relationships and other social interactions.
[0036] Various parameters can be used and updated in order to simulate personality of a user at any point in their life. These parameters may include, by way of example, and not by way of limitation: (1) relational psychology—situations and decisions that can prove revealing, (2) personality profiles—questions that define the character, (3) inner traits—analysis of preferences such as drawing style and handshake, (4) love test—scenarios that attempt to explain outlook on love, (5) shape test—shapes and symbols that reveal personality characteristics, (6) food test—how food and drink preferences relate to personality, (7) color test—color preferences, (8) internal beliefs -values, moral beliefs, political beliefs and spiritual beliefs, (9) personal details—age, family background, education, profession and external environment, (10) personal interviews—utilizing a speech recognition algorithm and/or a natural language processing algorithm, (11) personal library of audios and videos, and (12) what others think & say.
[0037] An expert algorithm, by way of example, and not by way of limitation, an artificial intelligence algorithm and/or a neural network algorithm, can synthesize results of the above parameters and can simulate closely the personality of a user.
[0038] Referring to
[0039] Referring to
TABLE-US-00002 Input Modules Description of Input Modules For a User 160 Relational Psychology 180 Personality Profiles 200 Inner Traits 220 Love Test 240 Shape Test 260 Food Test 280 Color Test 300 Internal Beliefs 320 Personal Details 340 Personal Interviews 360 Personal Library of Audios, Videos & Wisdom 380 What Others Think & Say
[0040] Such a system may be use the above inputs to create a closely simulated personality 120 is available from Electronic Arts of Redwood City, Calif., United States, as used in The Sims® series of video games. For example, in both The Sims® and The Sims® 2, personality is split into 5 sections: Niceness, neatness or cleanliness, outgoingness, activeness, and playfulness. It is normally related to a Sim's Zodiac sign, but there are exceptions.
[0041] Each section uses a zero-to-ten scale. The scale is actually 0 to 10.00 in The Sims® game, which could be applied to input modules 160, 180, 200, 220, 240, 260, 280, 300 320, 340, 360 and 380. In The Sims®, each section is split into three parts; 0-2, 3-7, and 8-10, each of which has a name and a description. The Sims® 2 uses personality scales that can be divided into low, medium, and high, which can be alternatively used in the present system to store the personality 120 too. In The Sims® 2, low is generally less than 4, and high is generally 8 (or 8.01) and above. In The Sims® 3, the personality points system was replaced with traits, which could also be used as an alternative to store the personality 120.
[0042] In The Sims®, children get personality points when they grow up from being babies. Most of what they call the townies get random personality points, though they may not receive them until they first appear in-game.
[0043] In The Sims®: Livin' Large®, the chemistry set can make a potion that reverses personality points. The only way to get them back would be to recreate the potion. A Sim abducted by aliens would return with an altered personality. Sims can change their personality one point at a time by using what is called the Crystal Ball. In The Sims® 2, aspects of a simulated personality 120 may be changed via what is called the Encourage interaction.
[0044] These qualities in The Sims® are sometimes referred to as traits, many of which mirror the above described input modules 160, 180, 200, 220, 240, 260, 280, 300 320, 340, 360 and 380.
[0045] Over the user's lifetime, a snapshot of the user's simulated personality 120 may be stored. By way of example, and not by way of limitation, every year, two years, or five years, a user may decide to add another snapshot simulated personality 120 to the system, along with the user's age at the time in order to organize the snapshots into age personality simulation 120 snapshots.
[0046] Personality questions provided to the user in input modules 160, 180, 200, 220, 240, 260, 280, 300 320, 340, 360 and 380) may be answered at a time t=t.sub.1 at which time the answers are graded in scale and stored as in the Electronic Arts® Sims® system. This method is then repeated for each snapshot simulated personality 120 at time t.sub.2, t.sub.3 . . . t.sub.n.
[0047] With each snapshot, integration of a simulated personality 120 of a user 100 with one or more image(s) of the person may further be taken and stored. In one embodiment, a three-dimensional (3-D) telepresence-like holographic image may be captured in near-real-time to represent the user to produce a combination 3-D representation and combined simulated personality 120 that can be termed an image personality (420 in
[0048] As explained below, this will give the user's relatives and friends the ability to converse with the user's simulated personalities 120 based on the age of the user. In other words, a user's friends and family may be able to interact with the user's simulated personality 120 at the age of 10, then again at the age of 15, and then at the age of 20, 35, and so on, at their choosing.
[0049] Each image personality of a user may be stored in a cloud-based server to provide network-based access to friends or family members. By way of example, and not by way of limitation, an internet server may be connected to the internet for access through a secure connection such as secure socket layer (SSL) to the image personality snapshots. Social media connections may be used such as through Google+® or Face Book®.
[0050] With reference to
[0051] For any of these embodiments, communications with the user 460 may be through a wide area network such as the internet 10 or world-wide-web.
[0052] In some embodiments, image 400 may comprise an animated or still 2D image for the image personality 420 at time t.sub.n. For example, if the firs user first provided a personality profile and image of him or herself when he was 15, then the second user 460 who is communicating with the image personality 420 at time t.sub.1 may see or interact with the representation 400 of the first user that the user uploaded when he or she was 15. If the next time the first user had provided a personality profile was when he or she was 25, then if the second user 460 communications with the t.sub.2 image personality 420, the second user 460 would be viewing the image of the first user that she provided when he or she was 25.
[0053] Arj an Egges, Sumedha Kshirsagar and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann of MIRALab—University of Geneva, describe an application with a visual front end that can be used in some embodiments of the present system in their paper titled Generic Personality and Emotion Simulation for Conversational Agents, Published in Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds archive, Volume 15 Issue 1, March 2004 Pages 1-13. As described therein, a graphical front-end comprises of a 3D talking head capable of rendering speech and facial expressions in synchrony with synthetic speech. The facial animation system interprets the emotional tags in the responses, generates lip movements for the speech and blends the appropriate expressions for rendering in real-time with lip synchronization. Facial dynamics are considered during the expression change, and appropriate temporal transition functions are selected for facial animation.
[0054] MPEG-4 facial animation parameters are used as low level facial deformation parameters. A system that provides the details of the deformation algorithm that can be used in one embodiment are explained in S. Kshirsagar, S. Garchery, and N. Magnenat-Thalmann, Deformable Avatars, Feature Point Based Mesh Deformation Applied to MPEG-4 Facial Animation, pages 33-43, Kluwer Academic Publishers, July 2001. However, for defining the visemes and expressions, principle components described by Kshirsagar et al. in S. Kshirsagar, T. Molet, and N. Magnenat-Thalmann, Principal components of expressive speech animation, Proceedings Computer Graphics International, pages 59-69, 2001. The principle components are derived from the statistical analysis of the facial motion data and reflect independent facial movements observed during fluent speech. They are used as high level parameters for defining the facial expressions and visemes. The use of principal components facilitates realistic speech animation, especially blended with various facial expressions. The main steps incorporated in the visual front-end are the following:
[0055] 1. Generation of facial animation parameters (FAPs) from text: Available text-to-speech (TTS) software that provides phonemes with temporal information may be used for this component. Co-articulation rules may be applied based on the algorithm described in M. M. Cohen and D. W. Massaro, Modelling Co Articulation In Synthetic Visual Speech, pages 139-156, Springer-Verlag, 1993, which may be adopted for use with the principal components.
[0056] 2. Expression blending: The dialogue system may output expression tags with the text response. Each expression is associated with an intensity value. An attack-sustaindecay-release type of envelope may be applied for the expressions and it is blended with previously calculated co-articulated phoneme trajectories. This blending is based on observed facial dynamics, incorporating the constraints on facial movements wherever necessary in order to avoid excessive/unrealistic deformations.
[0057] 3. Periodic facial movements: Periodic eye-blinks and minor head movements may be applied to the face for increased believability.
[0058] In order to help the image personality 420 to respond to the questions and interactions of the second user 460, an online knowledge bank may be accessed by the image personality 420. Although when the first user created the image personality, he or she may have inputted as much has he or she could regarding how he or she would respond to one or more second users 460 who may ask questions of his or her image personality, 460, it unlikely that the first user could have provided all of the knowledge necessary for any conceivable present or future knowledge-based question that the second user 460 could ask. For example, a second user's grandfather who might be the first user may not have much knowledge of smart phone technology when he created his image personality at time t.sub.n.
[0059] If the second user 460 asks a question related to smart phones of the image personality 420, it would not be desirable for the image personality to decline to answer the second user 460 because of such a lack of knowledge. Thus, instead of declining to answer, the image personality 420 may access a knowledge bank 440 in order to gain knowledge regarding the subject matter of a question to provide an answer that is commensurate with the personality of the image personality 420 at time t.sub.n. Such a knowledge bank may comprise, by way of example and not by way of limitation, Wikipedia®, provided by the Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., accessed through the internet 10.
[0060] A cognitive system such as the Watson® system provided by IBM Corporation of Armonk, New York, may be used to then interpret the question from the second user 460, and access the knowledge bank 440 to understand the question and determine one or more possible responses based on the knowledge bank 440. Which of the one or more possible responses is actually provided to the second user 460 depends on the image personality 420 of the first user. The possible responses may be put into, by way of example, and not by way of limitation, the OCC model discussed by Arjan Egges, Sumedha Kshirsagar and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann of MIRALab—University of Geneva, in their paper titled Generic Personality and Emotion Simulation for Conversational Agents, Published in Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds archive, Volume 15 Issue 1, March 2004 Pages 1-13.For example, if the image personality 420 of the grandfather suggests that the grandfather is economically frugal, then the OCC model may suggest that to the second user 460 that the cheapest smart phone should be purchased the second user 460.
[0061] As with social media applications, such as Facebook®, certain levels of services in one embodiment may be offered for free, with banner, pop-up, impression, or other types of paid advertiser support. However, in other embodiments, instead of, or along with, advertiser support, support may be provided by charging for paid subscription services, including pay-per-question (PPQ) charging for asking questions of the image personality 420 of a user 100. In yet other embodiments, the above-described paid support mechanisms may be combined with, or replaced by set-up fees paid by the first user whose personality is imaged.
[0062] With reference to
[0063] With reference specifically to
[0064] Continuing from the flow diagram in
[0065] In step 1214, if the first user 100 is satisfied with answers from his or her search of similar image personalities 420, then search of compatible image personalities 420 of other users in social media portal 500 is stopped. Otherwise in step 1216, the search of compatible image personalities 420 of other users continues.
[0066] Those of skill in the art can readily recognize how the system described herein can be applied to an employment screen system to great advantage of in-house or outside employment recruiters. With reference to
[0067] Continuing to
[0068] Continuing to
[0069] Using the embodiment of
[0070] With reference to
[0071] With reference to
[0072] Continuing with
[0073] Advertising success may be measured as a response rate percentage. For example, advertisers may consider ten percent (10%) to be a response rate that indicates a successful advertising campaign. In one embodiment after the coupons are sent to the users 100 with the matched image personalities and genders, when coupons are used at point of sale systems or scanned by service providers, the social media portal 500 may receive the use or response percentage directly or from the advertisers. In step 1294, the social media portal 500 may determine if a threshold desired response percentage, otherwise the advertisement is reiterated in step 1296, with, for example, adjusted traits searched.
[0074] With reference to
[0075] Finally, with reference back to
[0076] The above disclosed descriptions are only the most preferred embodiment of the present invention. However, it is not intended to be limiting to the most preferred embodiment of the present invention. Numerous variations and/or modifications are possible within the scope of the present invention.