Personal Assistant Follow-Up Response System

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Solution Overview

Problem

Personal assistant software often cannot provide immediate responses to natural language inputs due to issues like poor network connectivity or service outages, requiring users to remember queries or wait for follow-up responses.

Innovation Solution

Implementing a system that enables follow-up responses to prior natural language inputs by periodically checking for availability and providing updates without additional user input, allowing asynchronous interaction and utilizing context information to tailor responses during ongoing sessions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the personal assistant software waits for network connectivity and service availability before responding, then the accuracy and completeness of the response is improved, but the response time and user interaction continuity deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveresponse accuracyVSAvoidresponse delay

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by queuing user requests and attempting to process them as soon as network connectivity and services become available. The personal assistant software proactively checks for service availability and prepares responses in advance, rather than waiting passively for conditions to be met before initiating processing.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback mechanisms by continuously monitoring network connectivity status and service availability, then using this information to determine when to process queued requests. The personal assistant provides feedback to the user about the status of their requests and expects follow-up responses when information becomes available, creating a closed-loop system that adapts to changing conditions.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

2Measurement precision

If the personal assistant software requires user confirmation for follow-up actions, then the precision of user intent is improved, but the ease of operation and user convenience deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuser intent accuracyVSAvoiduser convenience

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The system applies partial action by seeking user confirmation only when necessary - specifically when processing follow-up responses to prior requests. For initial requests and routine operations, the personal assistant proceeds with processing without requiring additional user confirmation, thereby reducing operational friction while maintaining precision where critical.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Solution Approach 2:

The personal assistant software performs self-service by automatically managing the queue of user requests, monitoring service availability, and executing follow-up actions without requiring continuous user intervention. The system independently handles the complexity of retry logic, service status monitoring, and response formulation, freeing the user from manual follow-up operations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

3Loss of information

If the system implements periodic checking for service availability, then the completeness of follow-up responses is improved, but the use of energy and system resources increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveresponse completenessVSAvoidsystem resource consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements periodic checking of service availability at scheduled intervals rather than continuously monitoring. The personal assistant software checks for network connectivity and service status at defined periods, balancing the need for complete follow-up responses with reasonable resource consumption. This periodic approach ensures responses are completed when services become available while avoiding excessive resource usage from constant monitoring.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #19Periodic action

Data Source

PatentUS10229673B2System and method for providing follow-up responses to prior natural language inputs of a user

Publication Date: 2019.03.12 VOICEBOX TECH CORP

AI summary

In certain implementations, follow-up responses may be provided for prior natural language inputs of a user. As an example, a natural language input associated with a user may be received at a computer system. A determination of whether information sufficient for providing an adequate response to the natural language input is currently accessible to the computer system may be effectuated. A first response to the natural language input (that indicates that a follow-up response will be provided) may be provided based on a determination that information sufficient for providing an adequate response to the natural language input is not currently accessible. Information sufficient for providing an adequate response to the natural language input may be received. A second response to the natural language input may then be provided based on the received sufficient information.