Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Preliminary Base Schema - intent discussions

[cognite@zianet.com]

In summary, Rex and Ranjeeth's take is that Austin speech act definitions
which appear to constitute "intent" in DMML family projects just don't cover
intent fully enough for discriminating between overt and covert intents as
we need to do in HUML to avert recipient misunderstandings.  That seems
right.  The example adduced is of interest for presentations or programming
(included below).

(Only a bit of the prior discussion between Ranjeeth and Rex is shown below
for economy, then I append a description of the precedent cited, including
the components and goals of their implementation of user-goal-oriented
"Conversational Machines" for cell phone transactions and such.  Background
on the suggested reference on intent, DMML, and its harking back to standard
Discourse-theory Speech Acts as far as "intent",  is written up below for
the record; it might be useful for a proposal or publication.  Or just for
quicker reading. )

At 06:23 AM 17-10-2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>
>What follows is our discussion to date on intent, mixed in with 

....

 From: Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga <rkthunga@interposting.com>
             To: humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
             Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2002 00:27:42 -0400


      DMML REFERENCE
      ==============
      For now, I am listing the following effort which we may want to
      harmonize with, which I've posted in the
      past--http://xml.coverpages.org/dmml.html.  ...[not]
      very active in the last couple of years ... [but for] HumanML ...[we
need]  to clearly distinguish between  speech actions and intent--they may
appear to use the same codelists,
      but in fact are on different levels of abstractions.  I don't think DMML
      makes the same distinctions, however.
...


  From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
  To: Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga <rkthunga@interposting.com>,
humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
              Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 07:51:36 -0700

       in the Secondary Schema for Diplomatic Communications following a
       brief enumeration (not an exhaustive ontological list) of base
       characteristics in the Secondary Base Schema to set the stage for the
       Diplomatic Communications Schema. The Primary Base Schema is not the
       place for large lists. It is the place for the briefest, most atomic
       element units.

       However, having said all that, my personal opinion on codifying
       intent is that it is best handled within cultural/social contexts. We
       are striving to reduce miscommunication, and in particular with
       regard to intent, we are striving to clarify intent in such a way
       that those parties who would rather promulgate confusion or
       perpetuate plausible deniability find it increasingly difficult to do
       so successfully.

       If we have a means to say: "Given the cultural context K,L,M in which
       you assert you belong, and in regard to event N,O,P when you said
       X.Y.Z, did you really mean A,B,C?"; then, (if K,L,M has agreed-upon
       definitions according to HumanML DipCon to which parties have agreed)
       we can clarify what event N,O,P was according to cultural context
       interpretation by following up relentlessly on what was
       meant(intention) in the signal X,Y,Z. That is where we can get
       traction on people whose diplomatic skill is to lie convincingly.

       So, IMHO, if what you are suggesting can lead to increasing clarity
       by pinning down intentions according to cultural context--which has
       been supplied, hopefully, by members of the culture itself--I'm for
       it. However we need to be very careful so that we can expose
       discrepancies between what the culture says and what the individual
       member or representative says, then we can expose deliberate
       miscommunication, or we can show where terms have different meanings
       to different cultures and we can show both sides where that
       disconnect occurs in a way that they can only maintain their
       intransigence by exposing themselves as refusing to understand a
       clear explanation of the miscommunication in front of the court of
       public opinion. (For instance, Freedom Fighter/Terrorist, Innocent
       Victim/Collateral Damage, Revenge/Retaliation)

       I think that's where I'd like to see us go.