The pitfall of using question detection as a proxy for action inference in natural text conversations: a position paper

Detecting calls to action in natural text conversations, such as emails, chats and instant messages, is a pre-processing step that enables assistive technologies, such as the ones used in virtual assistants and chatbots, to capture and handle human-to-human interactions. Different forms of question detection are often used as a proxy solution for detecting intended actions. In this position paper, we provide empirical evidence that, despite their accuracy in detecting questions, both state-of-the-art industrial and academic question detection technologies are not good proxy solutions for inferring intended actions. We provide empirical data to demonstrate that the problem should be approached differently and as a comparison we present results obtained with a solution derived from our patent pending intention inference technology.