Nondeterministic task initiation by a personal assistant module

Abstract

Techniques are described herein for leveraging information about a user to enable a personal assistant module to make various inferences about what actions that may be responsive to a user declaration. In various implementations, upon identifying a user declaration received at a computing device, a plurality of candidate responsive actions that can be initiated by the computing device in response to the user declaration may be identified. A single candidate responsive action may then be non-deterministically (e.g., randomly, stochastically) selected to be exclusively initiated on the computing device in response to the user declaration.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method implemented using one or more processors, comprising:
 identifying a user declaration received at a computing device;   identifying, based on the user declaration, a plurality of candidate responsive actions that can be initiated by the computing device in response to the user declaration;   determining a probability that initiation of each candidate responsive action will be responsive to the user declaration, wherein the probabilities are based on a history of interaction between the user and one or more computing devices operated by the user;   non-deterministically selecting a single candidate responsive action from the plurality of candidate responsive actions to be exclusively initiated on the computing device in response to the user declaration, wherein the plurality of candidate responsive actions are weighted during the non-deterministic selecting based on the probabilities of the plurality of candidate responsive actions; and   exclusively initiating the selected single candidate responsive action on the computing device.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising altering a probability associated with the initiated responsive action based on one or more interactions between the user and the computing device following initiation of the selected single candidate responsive action. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the one or more interactions between the user and the computing device include rejection of the selected single candidate responsive action and manual initiation of an alternative candidate responsive action. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the altering comprises altering the probability associated with the selected single candidate responsive action by an amount that is inversely proportionate to a similarity between the selected single candidate responsive action and the alternative candidate responsive action. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the probabilities are further based at least in part on a current context of the user. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the current context of the user includes a current location of the user determined by the computing device. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the current context of the user includes a current time at a current location of the user. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein a probability associated with at least one candidate responsive action is based on a measure of similarity between the user's current context and a context of the user when the user initiated the at least one responsive action in the past. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of candidate responsive actions include a plurality of software applications installed on the computing device. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user declaration comprises a request to initiate a telephone call, and the plurality of candidate responsive actions include a plurality of telephone applications installed on the computing device. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user declaration comprises a request to send a message, and the plurality of candidate responsive actions include a plurality of messaging applications installed on the computing device. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user declaration comprises a request to set a reminder, and the plurality of candidate responsive actions include a plurality of applications installed on the computing device that include reminder functionality. 
     
     
         13 . A system comprising one or more processors and memory storing instructions that, in response to execution of the instructions by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
 identify a user declaration received at a computing device;   identify, based on the user declaration, a plurality of candidate responsive actions that can be initiated by the computing device in response to the user declaration;   determine a probability that initiation of each candidate responsive action will be responsive to the user declaration, wherein the probabilities are based on a history of interaction between the user and one or more computing devices operated by the user;   non-deterministically select a single candidate responsive action from the plurality of candidate responsive actions to be exclusively initiated on the computing device in response to the user declaration, wherein the plurality of candidate responsive actions are weighted during the non-deterministic selecting based on the probabilities of the plurality of candidate responsive actions; and   exclusively initiate the selected single candidate responsive action on the computing device.   
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising instructions to alter a probability associated with the initiated responsive action based on one or more interactions between the user and the computing device following initiation of the selected single candidate responsive action. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 14 , wherein the one or more interactions between the user and the computing device include rejection of the selected single candidate responsive action and manual initiation of an alternative candidate responsive action. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the alteration comprises alteration of the probability associated with the selected single candidate responsive action by an amount that is inversely proportionate to a similarity between the selected single candidate responsive action and the alternative candidate responsive action. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the probabilities are further based at least in part on a current context of the user. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 17 , wherein the current context of the user includes a current location of the user determined by the computing device or a current time at a current location of the user. 
     
     
         19 . At least one non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, in response to execution of the instructions by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the following operations:
 identifying a user declaration received at a computing device;   identifying, based on the user declaration, a plurality of candidate responsive actions that can be initiated by the computing device in response to the user declaration;   determining a probability that initiation of each candidate responsive action will be responsive to the user declaration, wherein the probabilities are based on a history of interaction between the user and one or more computing devices operated by the user;   non-deterministically selecting a single candidate responsive action from the plurality of candidate responsive actions to be exclusively initiated on the computing device in response to the user declaration, wherein the plurality of candidate responsive actions are weighted during the non-deterministic selecting based on the probabilities of the plurality of candidate responsive actions; and   exclusively initiating the selected single candidate responsive action on the computing device.   
     
     
         20 . The at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 19 , further comprising instructions for:
 altering a probability associated with the initiated responsive action based on one or more interactions between the user and the computing device following initiation of the selected single candidate responsive action, wherein the one or more interactions between the user and the computing device include rejection of the selected single candidate responsive action and manual initiation of an alternative candidate responsive action.