IMPLEMENTING A GROUNDING MODULE FOR AN NPC Testing grounding of novel names with state charts and LLMs

Abstract

In this work we argue that any system that processes spoken human language should incorporate mechanisms for grounding, as it is an essential part of human communication. Because of this, we explore two name-grounding systems conceived as a Non-Playable Character (NPC) of a hypothetical video game stage. The methodology consists of a qualitative observation of the performance these two different dialogue systems carry out when encountered with an unusual name. These two systems present different structures: one of them is a rule based state-chart and the other a prompted Large Language Model (LLM). We have found that the first system can be improved in terms of flexibility and the second one in terms of reliability. After said observation we propose a hybrid approach for future research.