Protocol Switching in a Multi-Agent Dialogue System

Dialogue protocols define how a dialogue may proceed and the moves its participants can make within it. The scope of this work covers protocol switching, and addresses the current gap in the area of illicit protocol switches in dialogue. Over the course of a dialogue the participants’ goals and strategies may change in response to the other participants within the dialogue. Enabling agents to switch between protocols gives them the flexibility to address these changes and make use of them. This paper introduces protocol switching using Dialogue as a Service (DaaS), a platform for building multi-agent dialogue systems. DaaS can be used to create a wide range of multi-agent dialogue systems due to its few restrictions and inherent flexibility, which is illustrated through the use of two examples from the literature. Protocol switches can be both licit and illicit; however, current research has only focused on implementing licit protocol switches. An approach to facilitating and managing illicit protocol switches is demonstrated herein.