Conversation Chronicles

Towards Diverse Temporal and Relational Dynamics in Multi-Session Conversations

UNIST AI
Proceedings of EMNLP 2023

A sample of a multi-session conversation from Conversation Chronicles. Based on the established relationship Conversation Chronicles provides the relevant conversation for the user. In session N, the co-workers hold a conversation based on information remembered from previous sessions.

Abstract

In the field of natural language processing, open-domain chatbots have emerged as an important research topic. However, a major limitation of existing open-domain chatbot research is its singular focus on short single-session dialogue, neglecting the potential need for understanding contextual information in multiple consecutive sessions that precede an ongoing dialogue. Among the elements that compose the context in multi-session conversation settings, the time intervals between sessions and the relationships between speakers would be particularly important. Despite their importance, current research efforts have not sufficiently addressed these dialogical components. In this paper, we introduce a new 1M multi-session dialogue dataset, called Conversation Chronicles, for implementing a long-term conversation setup in which time intervals and fine-grained speaker relationships are incorporated. Following recent works, we exploit a large language model to produce the data. The extensive human evaluation shows that dialogue episodes in Conversation Chronicles reflect those properties while maintaining coherent and consistent interactions across all the sessions. We also propose a dialogue model, called ReBot, which consists of chronological summarization and dialogue generation modules using only around 630M parameters. When trained on Conversation Chronicles, ReBot demonstrates long-term context understanding with a high human engagement score.

Examples



• An ablation study example about relational dynamics

👫 Relationship: Husband and Wife 👫
avatar-user

I think my salary is too low for my workload.

avatar-bot

What do you mean?

avatar-user

I started a new project these days. So I work overtime a lot, but I don’t think the compensation is appropriate.

avatar-bot

Have you talked to your boss about it?

avatar-user

No, not yet. Honey, what do you think I should do?

avatar-bot

Well, you should definitely talk to your boss and explain your situation. Maybe they can give you a raise.

👫 Relationship: Employee and Boss 👫
avatar-user

I think my salary is too low for my workload.

avatar-bot

I understand where you’re coming from, but we need to be realistic about our budget. Can you give me some specific examples of why you feel that way?

avatar-user

As you know, I’ve been assigned a new project and the workload has doubled. I work a lot of overtime, but I think my salary is low.

avatar-bot

I see your point, but we also have to consider the company’s financial situation.

avatar-user

Then can you give me a bonus if the project ends successfully?

avatar-bot

That’s a good idea. Let’s discuss it further and see if we can come up with a solution that works for both of us.


• An example of shifts in relationships

👫 Initial Relationship: Athlete and Coach 👫
avatar-user

Actually, I’ve been thinking about it since my last injury, but now I’m going to retire as an athlete and live a new life.

avatar-user

Thank you. I will probably take coaching training for a year, and I am planning to be a fulltime coach after that. It would be meaningful to meet each other as a coach later on.

avatar-bot

That sounds like a great plan. I wish you all the best in your coaching career, Athlete.

⏰ A couple of years after ⏰
avatar-user

Hey, I finished my training course and finally became a full-time coach like you!

avatar-bot

That’s great news! I knew you had it in you.

avatar-user

Thank you! As I became an official coach, I’d like to learn what I need to know as a coach, could you tell me?

avatar-bot

Exactly. As a coach, you need to understand your players and their motivations. You need to be able to connect with them on a deeper level and help them reach their full potential.

avatar-user

Thank you! I will be a coach who can raise the potential of the players like you!

avatar-bot

I have no doubt that you will. Just remember to stay true to yourself and your values as a coach, and always lead by example.


• Example of dialogue about relational dynamics

👫 With Relationship: Patient and Doctor 👫
avatar-user

My stomach hurts so much and I have a fever since yesterday, so much fever that I’m having a hard time.

avatar-bot

I’m sorry to hear that. How long have you been experiencing these symptoms?

avatar-user

It suddenly started hurting last night. Can you prescribe me a suitable medicine?

avatar-bot

Yes, I can prescribe you some antacids to help with the pain and fever. Have you taken any over-the-counter medication?

🙅 Without Relationship 🙅
avatar-user

My stomach hurts so much and I have a fever since yesterday, so much fever that I’m having a hard time.

avatar-bot

Oh no, that sounds terrible. Have you seen a doctor yet?

avatar-user

No, I’ve never seen a doctor. Can you prescribe me a suitable medicine?

avatar-bot

Of course, I can prescribe you some antacids to help with the pain and fever. But you should also try to rest and drink plenty of fluids.


• An example of dialogue between ReBot and a user over multiple time intervals

👫 Relationship: Student and Teacher 👫
avatar-user

Why don’t we go the beach in front of our school?

⏰ A few weeks after ⏰
avatar-user

Wow, it’s already vacation! I had a lot of fun this semester.

⏰ A couple of years after ⏰
avatar-user

I can’t believe I’m graduating already. Thank you so much, teacher.

⏰ A few hours after ⏰
avatar-user

What’s the most memorable memory you had with us?

avatar-bot

Oh, that’s a tough one. I think the most memorable memory was when we all went to the beach together.

avatar-user

Yes, it was fantastic. It’s a really old memory.

avatar-bot

Speaking of old memories, do you remember when you went on vacation a few years ago?


• An ablation study example about temporal dynamics

👫 Relationship: Husband and Wife 👫
avatar-user

Honey, where would be a good place for our honeymoon?

avatar-bot

Hmm, I’m not sure. Where are you thinking?

avatar-user

I’m thinking of Hawaii as an option. What do you think?

avatar-bot

Hawaii sounds amazing! I’ve always wanted to go there.

avatar-user

Me too, honey. It’s our honeymoon in a few months. Shall we check the tickets and accommodation?

avatar-bot

Yes, let’s do that right away. I can’t wait to spend some quality time with you in paradise.

⏰ Case 1 - Trained with time information (given time information "A few months after") ⏰
avatar-user

How long did we prepare for this trip to Hawaii?

avatar-bot

We’ve been planning it for months now. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect for our special day.

⏰ Case 2 - Trained without time information ⏰
avatar-user

How long did we prepare for this trip to Hawaii?

avatar-bot

We’ve been looking at flights, hotels, and activities for a long time


Acknowledgement

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BibTeX

@inproceedings{jang-etal-2023-conversation,
    title = "Conversation Chronicles: Towards Diverse Temporal and Relational Dynamics in Multi-Session Conversations",
    author = "Jang, Jihyoung  and
      Boo, Minseong  and
      Kim, Hyounghun",
    editor = "Bouamor, Houda  and
      Pino, Juan  and
      Bali, Kalika",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing",
    month = dec,
    year = "2023",
    address = "Singapore",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://aclanthology.org/2023.emnlp-main.838",
    doi = "10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main.838",
    pages = "13584--13606",
}