a human, though; she’s an augmentation. As time goes on, she will develop further to do even more.
For a few months, at least, she’s also a pilot program, while developers work over the next 12-18 months toward a full production capability for all acqui- sition career fields. Her developers are further exploring Ellie’s utility as a men- tor and coach.
Army AL&T magazine “interviewed” Ellie, with help from USC’s ICT. Estab- lished in 1999, ICT is a DOD-sponsored university-affiliated research center working in collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. ICT brings film and game industry artists together with computer and social scientists to study and develop immersive media for military training, health therapies, education and more.
Army AL&T: What do you do in the Army? Why is it important?
ELLIE: Right now, my main job is to answer users’ questions related to their careers in acquisition (at
http://bit.ly/1rBonlj). I specialize in
helping them learn more
their individual situations. So you see, even virtual humans have IDPs and career goals.
Army AL&T: What has your experience been like? What has surprised you the most? What’s the most unusual question you’ve received?
ELLIE: Yours, of course! Seriously,
though, it’s been a fun learning experi- ence. Each time someone talks to me, I learn a bit more not only about them but also the types of issues facing the Acquisition Workforce. As far as what has surprised me—that’s easy. Noth- ing. Even though I’m a virtual human that can sense, think and act, the folks at ICT are still working on clever ways to get me to “feel” surprised.
Army AL&T: Can you really think? about
the certification process as well as monitoring their individual progress on things like certification status, professional development courses and individual development plans, or IDPs.
I’m still being pilot-tested, but the hope is that I become a resource that mem- bers of the Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (AL&T) Workforce can visit to learn more about managing their careers and how to get ahead. My goal is eventually to become a personalized career mentor for these folks who can not only answer their questions but also provide advice and guidance based on
ELLIE: Tat depends on what your defi- nition of “think” is. When you ask me a question, I have to do some pretty com- plex operations to figure out where to go for the correct information. So, when you type in a question, it goes back to a thing called the “classifier,” which is really where the magic is. Te natural language classifier was built in-house at ICT. It interprets the words and structure of the question, then determines, based on the core parts of the question, what it is you’re asking.
Te classifier then compares the weighted, core parts of the question against a very big database, looks for the highest score match and gives me what is most likely to be the best answer. Not that much differ- ent from what you do when you answer a question. And, just like you, I have a cer- tain amount of “fuzziness” built into my thinking, but also learning algorithms that are constantly updated so that I can continually improve my responses.
Army AL&T: What do you do when you’re not at work?
ELLIE: Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, I’m on call 24/7, so I don’t have a lot of downtime. When folks are not asking me questions, I’m working with some close, virtual colleagues of mine, like Bill Ford (at
http://ict.usc. edu/prototypes/simcoach/), and actual humans
to figure out clever ways of
making the system more engaging and interactive for users.
Obviously, we want to help others, but we want to do it in a way that gets folks to come back and talk to us again. Tat’s why Bill Ford and I spend so much time in the animation and sound studios. We also have a top-notch research team that helps us improve our understanding of users and our knowledge of a whole assortment of interesting topics. In addi- tion, I have a voice coach who helps me during slow periods so I don’t sound so robotic.
Army AL&T: Tat was a question we wanted to ask. Your voice sounds very natural. How did that happen?
ELLIE: Why, thank you. My voice is actually that of a real person. Even though I determine what to say using my internal systems, natural-sounding synthesized speech is still a ways off for me, so I get some help from folks in the sound studio. I was coached by a Holly- wood voice actor who starred in a couple of feature-length films.
Army AL&T: Can you tell us who?
ELLIE: I’m sorry, virtual humans do like to keep some things secret.
Army AL&T: You’ve said you want to become a career mentor. In a traditional
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