Statistical User Simulation for Spoken Dialogue Systems: What for, Which Data, Which Future?

Abstract : There has been a lot of interest for user simulation in the field of spoken dialogue systems during the last decades. User simulation was first proposed to assess the performance of SDS before a public release. Since the late 90's, user simulation is also used for dialogue management optimisation. In this position paper, we focus on statistical methods for user simulation, their main advantages and drawbacks. We initiate a reflection about the utility of such methods and give some insights of what their future should be.