The concept of communicating with a computer via natural language first became popular as far back as Star Trek (1966 to 1969). In the series, we can often see Kirk, Scotty, and the gang issuing commands to the computer. Since then, many attempts have been made to build chatbots that can converse naturally with a human. During this often unsuccessful journey over the years, several linguistic methods have been developed. These methods are often grouped together and referred to as natural language processing, or NLP. Now, NLP still is the foundation for most chatbots, including the deep learning variety we will get to shortly.
We often group conversational agents by purpose or task. Currently, we categorize chatbots into two main types:
- Goal-oriented: These bots are the kind Kirk would use or the ones you likely communicate with on a daily basis, and...
