Advice-giving using REASON: An intelligent assistant for interactive computing

Abstract

The authors investigated the application of fairly well-understood artificial intelligence techniques in novel ways to provide intelligent help. The authors describe the design methodology used to build REASON (real-time explanation and suggestion), an intelligent user-assistant prototype for a windowed, multitasking environment. When the user asks a question using natural language or makes an error, it offers dynamically generated suggestions about what the user might have intended based on the context of the interaction. In addition, REASON can provide two complementary types of explanations of these responses derived from the inferences that led to them.