# Clinc AI Platform Terminology
This document defines common terms used throughout the Clinc Knowledge-base.
A | B | C | D | I | J | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | W
# A
# Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial Intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, natural langauge processing and machine translation.
# AI Project
An AI projects is the workplace to build your conversational AI experience. It packages all the versions and snapshots into one project for easier project management.
# AI Version
An AI version is a working branch of your AI project. It is the workplace to build competencies, collect and curate training data, train models (classification & SVP), and customize responses.
# Applications Programming Interface (API)
Application Programming Interface is a set of subroutine definitions, protocols, and tools for building application software.
# Automated Speech Recognition (ASR)
An engine enables conversational AI to process voice-driven interactions and communicate outside of traditional text-based interfaces.
# Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform provided by Amazon which provides a mix of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and packaged software as a service (SaaS) offerings.
# B
# Business Logic
Code that interfaces with a database or Application Programming Interface (API) outside the Clinc AI Platform. It allows you to execute any code/logic you want when a user makes a certain query.
# Business Logic Server
Server that allows you to expose an endpoint for the Clinc AI Platform to POST request a JSON payload to. It hosts your business logic codes and can verify slots or change state,it can also execute actions and get data to pass back to Clinc Response generation.
# Business Logic Transition
Business Logic transition is a whitelisted transition that can be arbitrarily initiated by Business Logic. If Business Logic overrides the destination state, and a matching Business Logic transition exists, then the transition will be taken.
# C
# Channel
A channel is devices like Alexa, Google home, or mobile (android and IOS), web, IVR and Facebook Messenger to which you can launch your virtual assistant for end users to interact with.
# Checkout
Checking out a snapshot lets you create a working branch (version) to build conversational AI experience.
# Class
A class is the label that defines the direction of the next turn in the conversation. See also intent.
# Classification (CLF)
Classification is the process that determines the direction of the next turn in the conversation.
# Classifier
A classifier/query classifier is an AI engine that infers the direction of the next turn in the conversation.
# Classification Job
A type of crowdsourcing job that engages crowdsource workers to provide utterances, things that people say, about a specific intent.
# Classification Transition
Classification transition is a classification-driven transition. When processing a query, the Clinc AI engine begins with classifying the utterance. After classification, the AI engine looks at the outgoing classification transitions from the current state. If an outgoing transition includes the resulting class, the transition can be executed successfully otherwise the conversation is taken back to the root state.
# Competency
A competency can be thought of as a topic area or an atomic action that your AI “brain” knows about or can carry out. For example, asking about the weather, ordering food, or setting cruise control speed etc.
# Conversational State
See State.
# Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a way to quickly collect diverse data/utterances for a competency by leveraging many sources from inside or outside your organization.
# D
# Data
In the Clinc AI Platform, we gather utterances as training data. Utterance is a question or statement that a user may ask the AI in order to get a response about the selected topic.
# Data Query Language (DQL)
Data Query Language (DQL) is a language that Clinc has developed that enables you to locate data through queries. It supports queries based on strings, slots, slot values, phrases and the number of slots labeled.
# Deep Neural Networks (DNN)
A Deep Neural Network is an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with multiple hidden layers between the input and output layers. DNNs can model complex non-linear relationships.
# Deployed Version
A deployed version is a snapshot version assigned to an application inside a production environment. It will be prioritized in the cache for querying.
# I
# Integration Suite
An integration suite is a grouping of integrations tied to a single ai version. This can be visualized as creating a "virtual assistant" that can be deployed to any number of supported integration platforms.
# Intent
In the Clinc AI Platform, an intent refers to a collection of data that is associated with classification transitions. Intents are used to train the query classifier AI engine so that the AI engine can decide what direction the conversation is going to take.
# J
# JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
JSON is an open-standard file format that uses human-readable text to transmit data objects consisting of attribute-value pairs and array data types.
# Jinja
A powerful templating language used to translate response templates into final natural language by filling in variables to construct the final response.
# M
# Machine Learning (ML)
Machine Learning is an application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can access data and use it learn for themselves.
# MTurk
The platform provided by Amazon that is integrated with the Clinc AI Platform for users to crowdsource data to train their conversational AI.
# N
# Natural Language Generation (NLG)
As a subset of NLP, NLG transforms structured data into natural language. Generally, NLU takes up the undertanding of the databased on grammar, the context in which it was said and decide on intent and entities, NLP converts a text into structured data and finally, NLG generates a text based on structured data.
# Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural Language Processing is the ability of a computer program to understand human language as it is spoken. NLP is a component of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
# Natural Language Understanding (NLU)
The field of NLU is an important and challenging subset of natural language processing (NLP). Understanding of natural human languages enables computers to understand commands without the formalized syntax of computer languages and for computers to communicate back to humans in their own languages.
# P
# Personality
A set of response templates in different tones of voice across a set of competencies which you can deploy onto a variety of devices.
# Pre-built Slot
Pre-built slots are platform built-in slot extractors to help you quickly extract values that belong to that specific slot. It doesn't require training data upfront and is non-configurable.
# Q
# Query
A query is any request given by the user to a conversational AI.
# R
# Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)
A Recurrent Neural Network is a type of advanced Artificial Neural Network (ANN) that involves directed cycles in memory. They are typically applied to sequential data such as speech.
# Response Generation
The process in which the AI uses response templates and information identified from the user query or from business logic to generate a response.
# Response Template
Structure of how a response is built in natural language with slots/variables that are dynamically assigned at response time.
# S
# Scoping Job
Scoping job is a type of crowdsourcing job available on the Platform to help you gather ideas about your AI version. It is useful when you have a vague idea what you want to build, but aren't exactly sure what users would want or how they would use it. Scoping data offers a way to get a sense for end-users' perspective on a potential product functionality.
# Secondary Cluster
In slot mapping, second cluster values are what you configure to have the svp extracted slot map to. They are usually synonyms or closely related terms to the target value.
# Slot
Important information/variables in an utterance.
# Slot Labeling Job
A type of crowdsourcing job that engages crowdsource to label slot data to train the SVP engine. A slot labeled needs to pass a certain number of votes to count.
# Slot Mapping
Slot mapping is the process of mapping an identified slot value (word/phrase being extracted from the user query, also called SVP value in the following text) to a set of secondary clusters (word/phrase) through a mapping type.
# Slot/Variable Transition
Slot transition is a slot value-driven transition. This type of transition requires a set of slots to be extracted. When all the slots are filled, a transition will automatically be executed. Until then, the AI prompts the user for the information needed to make the transition.
# Slot-Value Pairing (SVP)
An AI engine that extracts values from an utterance and pairs them to the appropriate slot variable.
# Snapshot
A Snapshot is a non-editable version. It serves as milestones of the project from which team members can diverge as well as a fallback to revert to in the event of unintended changes or human errors.
# State
A state is any point in the conversation where your AI might want to generate a response.
# State Graph
The State Graph is a visual representation of all the states and transitions inside of the competencies of your conversational AI.
# T
# Test Assertion
In the context of Clinc AI platform, a test assertion is to check if a part of the AI pipeline (intent, slot, slot mapping or response) matches expected intent. A quick way to assert expected intents, slots, slot mappers and response values is through Autofill. You can also choose to manually assert when the value doesn't match your expectation.
# Test Case
A test case is an utterance/query to test the performance of classification, SVP, slot mapping or response separately or all at once. Test data should always be separated from training data.
# Test Dialog
A test dialog is a set of test cases that are intended to test the flow of a conversation.
# Test Suite
A test suite is a collection of full conversations (end-to-end testing) and unit tests (classification unit testing, svp unit testing etc.).
# Tokenization
The process of segmenting running text into words and sentences.
# Transition
A transition is a way through which the conversation can move into the next state.
# U
# Utterance
A question or statement that a user may ask the AI in order to get a response about the selected topic.
# W
# Webhook
The mechanism to expose Business Logic using Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) in Clinc’s AI Platform.
Last updated: 08/21/2020