Help computers understand language. Piek Vossen, VU University Amsterdam ICT-OPEN, 2013, Eindhoven

Transcription

1 Help computers understand language Piek Vossen, VU University Amsterdam ICT-OPEN, 2013, Eindhoven

2 ICT Information & Communication technology Communication and Information Science technology humanities Communication of Information From whom/what? To whom/what? About what? 2

3 Digital communication RDF: Resource Description Framework 31 billion triples 504 million links Structured data in RDF reason Structured data in RDF reason Structured data in RDF Search Dialogue Understanding natural language Search Dialogue Free text Post Free text Free text Post Chat 30%-90% of all data 3

4 We live in an information society even more so We live in a communication society 4

5 5

6 Alistair McAlpine: trial by twitter November 2012: Lord Alistair McAlpine falsely accused on Twitter from child abuse in Wrexham children's home Without checking taken over by the Brittish press, incl BBC BBC settlement for 185,000 Lord McAlpine claims up to 500,000 for ITV His laywers identified 1,000 people that sent out tweets claiming he is a pedosexual and 9,000 people that retweeted the message. 6

7 2009: Vaccination of 12-year old girls against the papilloma virus (HPV) Included in the national vaccination programme despite the high costs and supported by science Undermined by Internet forums, e.g. Gardasil is the HPV vaccine, touted to fight cervical cancer. What they are not telling you is that thousands of girls are having adverse reactions to the HPV Vaccines, some have even died -at last count, at least 103 lives have been lost. We have got to do something about this. These girls need our help! These girls are having reactions such as; seizures, strokes, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, headaches, stomach pains, vomitting, muscle pain and weakness, joint pain, auto-immune problems, chest pains, hair loss, appetite loss, personality changes, insomnia, hand/leg tremors, arm/leg weakness, shortness of breath, heart problems, paralysis, itching, rashes, swelling, aching muscles,pelvic pain, nerve pain, menstrual cycle changes, fainting, swollen lymph nodes, night sweats, nausea, temporary vision/hearing loss just to name some of them! Campaigne partially failed: only 60% got vaccinated 7

8 Data Information Knowledge opinions truth lies trust deception Provenance! 8

9 Help computers understand language How to get from free text to structured data? How to detect opinions? How to detect lies and false information? How to handle the provenance of information streams created by humans who is responsible for what information and knowledge? 9

10 How difficult can it be? De band speelt buiten op het veld. Ze hebben er zin in. Bij de eerste slag slaat de drummer zijn stokken al stuk. 10

11 How difficult can it be? The band plays outside on the field. They are looking forward to it. With the first beat, the drummer already breaks his sticks. 11

12 De band[12] speelt[12] buiten[3] op het veld[12]. Ze hebben er zin[12] in. Bij[3] de eerste slag[18] slaat[9] de drummer zijn stokken[6] al stuk[12]. 12 X 12 X 3 X 12 X 12 X 3 X 18 X 9 X 6 X 12 = (2 BILLION) combinations of meanings 12

13 Ambiguity of language Some data on the Dutch language 5,000 words have 3 to 18 meanings and are most frequent: e.g. slag (hit):18, gaan (go):17, houden (keep):17, zin (sense):12, stuk (piece):12, band:12, veld (field):12, spelen (play): % of each text is composed of these words (6-8 out of 10 words in a text) Computer error rate of 40%, processing is extremely slow 13

14 Teach computers to detect meaning Wordnets: Strong intuition on semantic relations between words: band, jazzband, orchestra, rock-band, big-band, steel band, quintet, quartet, chorus, duet, octet, trio Network of words, meanings and relations: over hundredthousands words and many more relations Distributional semantic vectors of words: J.R. Firth: You shall know a word by the company it keeps The music of X, X sounds great, joins X, X is playing tonight band Machine-learning: Examples of sentences with ambiguous words used in different meanings: band music, play, decoration, social bond, member of Co-occurring words become features for detecting meanings 14

15 From words to sentences to text to stories The deep-reading of text

16 Can we handle the news? 2 million items from 30,000 sources each working day 16

17 Big and Deep Volume of text and news is enormous We have no knowledge about its content Duplication, repetition, complementation, contradictions, old mixed with new Information cannot be seen without its provenance complex network of sources With every fact comes the opinion of its source From volumes of text to volumes of facts and volumes of opinions 17

18 NewsReader-ICT Automatically process massive streams of daily news from thousands of sources in 4 different languages by machinereading Recording the changes in the world as they are told in the media over long periods of time history-recorder Organise and visualise massive amounts of information as stories, scripts, plots to provide more effecient access Partners: Netherlands (VU University Amsterdam, LexisNexis, Synerscope), Spain (Basque University), UK (ScraperWiki) and Italy (Federation Bruno Kessler, Trento) January , Funded by the EU, FP7, ICTchallenge

19 Overall approach Resolve all mentions of events (what), their participants (who) and references to time (when) and place (where) in each textual source and in any other structural database Determine which mentions (descriptions) refer to the same event (co-reference) and what the relations are between the ones that do not co-refer (time, cause, subevents). Combine all information from mentions on the same event around a hypothetical event-instance aggregate from multiple sources Combine all instances into story lines over time longterm processes such as the financial crisis 19

20 What happened at Vorst in Belgium? April 2006: Juli 2006: Less Golfs produced in Vorst, maybe more Polos. If not, we have a problem, says a union representative... November 2006: Polo production to Vorst, no jobs lost in Spain and extra jobs in Belgium. Augustus 2006: production of Polo from Spain to Eastern-Europe because of social problems in Pamplona and maybe production to Vorst in Belgium Volkswagen stops the production of Golf in Vorst: 3,500 jobs are lost November 2009: Audi plant in Vorst stops the production of Polo: 300 jobs lost 20

21 How to determine mentions WHO WHO WHERE WHAT WHO WORD SEQUENCE. Bij de Volkswagen fabriek in Vorst verdwijnen zeker banen... CONCEPT SEQUENCE....PLANT...DISAPPEAR JOBS RELATIONS & IMPLICATIONS PROVENANCE SOURCE TIME, PLACE (DISAPPEAR, JOBS) (OWNS, VOLKSWAGEN, PLANT) (OPERATE, PLANT, JOBS) Language Technology autointernationaal STATEMENT CERTAIN 21

22 Bron: Bron: gen-fabriek-belgie-moet-stoppen-met-de-golf hp?id=2868 Tijd: om 15:07 Tekst: Volkswagen fabriek België moet stoppen met de Golf. stop with the Golf. Er gingen namelijk geruchten over zware saneringen, van tot ontslagen. disappear sure jobs Action: Participants: Time: Location: There were rumours about heavy cuts, of up to fired Bron: Tijd: :26 Tekst: Bij de Volkswagen fabriek in Vorst verdwijnen zeker banen jobs gone in Vorst, plant kanaalid=261&pageid=15 DECREASE? NR OF JOBS Vorst, Belgium loses Golf Tijd: Di 21/11/2006 Tekst: Tot banen weg in Vorst Fabriek verliest Golf BRUSSEL - Boze arbeiders blokkeren de poorten van de Volkswagenfabriek in Vorst, nadat bekend raakte dat zeker van de banen verdwijnen. sure 3500 of the 5300 jobs disappear Bron: Tijd: 13 mrt 2013 om 13:24 Tekst: Op 21 november 2006 kwam het nieuws dat Volkswagen Vorst de productie van de Golf verliest en er meer dan 3500 van de 5000 banen geschrapt zouden worden. production of the Golf lost and there more than 3500 of the 5000 jobs canceled should be 22

23 What was said in 2006? VOLKSWAGEN VORST VORST, BELGIUM VOLKSWAGEN LOCATED-IN OWNS HAS-NAME autointernationaal.nl standaard.be nl.wikipedia.org annual GOLF annual AUDI annual PRODUCES PLANT November 2006 autoblog.nl POLO PRODUCES PRODUCES FUTURE HAS NOW HAS JOBS JOBS PATIENT November 2006 DISAPPEAR March 2013 March 2013 nl.wikipedia.org 23

24 5 years later: 2011 AUDI BRUSSEL VORST, BELGIUM HAS-NAME VOLKSWAGEN LOCATED-IN OWNS nl.wikipedia.org PLANT PRODUCES HAS HAS March 2013 AUDI ROBOTS 450 JOBS annual

25 Grounded Annotation Framework 25

26 A 9.1 temblor in 2004 caused a tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean 26

27 System architecture 27

28 What's in the news? Daily news stream = 2 million items, lets take 1 million Mentions text xml Instances naf 2GB size 20GB size 2TB size 1 billion words 50 million sentences linguistic event processing reasoning 15 YEARS? sec. sem KS 200MB size 5 million events 5 million participants 2 million places 2 million time points 150 million RDF triples 28

29 Historical event-coreference Daily stream of news 1 million items attack shooting - killing hostage shooting - wounded takeover acquire - merger bankrupcy closed topic detection 85 event mentions/file time & place detection event matrix operations 5 event instances/file 29

30 Historical event-coreference Daily stream of news 1 million items attack shooting - killing hostage shooting - wounded takeover acquire - merger bankrupcy closed topic detection time & place detection event matrix operations 85 event mentions/file event instances/file

31 Conclusions ICT is about communication between machines and between humans and machines Natural language plays a key role in many ways People and their language are misleading Processing natural language is an enormous challenge BUT with a big award! 31