Artificial Intelligence for .Net: Speech, Language, and Search: Building Smart Applications with Microsoft Cognitive Services APIs

✍ Scribed by Pathak, Nishith

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2017;2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 278
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Get introduced to the world of artificial intelligence with this accessible and practical guide. Build applications that make intelligent use of language and user interaction to better compete in today's marketplace. Discover how your application can deeply understand and interpret content on the web or a user's machine, intelligently react to direct user interaction through speech or text, or make smart recommendations on products or services that are tailored to each individual user.

With Microsoft Cognitive Services, you can do all this and more utilizing a set of easy-to-use APIs that can be consumed on the desktop, web, or mobile devices. Developers normally think of AI implementation as a tough task involving writing complex algorithms. This book aims to remove the anxiety by creating a cognitive application with a few lines of code. There is a wide range of Cognitive Services APIs available. This book focuses on some of the most useful and powerful ways that your application can make intelligent use of language.

Artificial Intelligence for .NET: Speech, Language, and Searchwill show you how you can start building amazing capabilities into your applications today.

What You'll Learn

Understand the underpinnings of artificial intelligence through practical examples and scenarios
Get started building an AI-based application in Visual Studio
Build a text-based conversational interface for direct user interaction
Use the Cognitive Services Speech API to recognize and interpret speech
Look at different models of language, including natural language processing, and how to apply them in your Visual Studio application
Reuse Bing search capabilities to better understand a user's intention


Work with recommendation engines and integrate them into your apps


Who This Book Is For

Developers working on a range of platforms, from .NET and Windows to mobile devices. Examples are given in C#. No prior experience with AI techniques or theory is required.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents at a Glance......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
About the Author......Page 14
About the Contributing Author......Page 15
About the Technical Reviewer......Page 16
Acknowledgments......Page 17
Introduction......Page 18
Chapter 1: Getting Started with AI Basics......Page 20
Truth vs. Fiction......Page 21
History and Evolution......Page 22
Commoditization of AI......Page 23
Microsoft and AI......Page 24
Basic Concepts......Page 25
Machine Learning......Page 28
Types of Machine Learning......Page 30
Natural Language Processing......Page 31
TTS and STT......Page 32
Object Detection......Page 33
Image Recognition......Page 34
Optical Character Recognition......Page 35
Microsoft’s Cognitive Services......Page 36
Speech......Page 37
Knowledge......Page 38
Search......Page 39
Recap......Page 40
Chapter 2: Creating an AI-Based Application in Visual Studio......Page 41
Getting an Azure Subscription Key for Cognitive Services......Page 42
Step 1: Set Up an Azure Account......Page 43
Step 2: Create a New Cognitive Services Account......Page 45
Step 3: Get the Subscription Key(s)......Page 47
Testing the API......Page 48
How To Do It......Page 49
Creating Your First AI-based Application......Page 51
The Code......Page 52
The Walkthrough......Page 54
The Result......Page 56
The Code......Page 57
The Walkthrough......Page 59
The Result......Page 60
Recap......Page 61
Chapter 3: Building a Conversational User Interface with Microsoft Technologies......Page 62
In the Very Beginning: the Command-Line Interface (CLI)......Page 64
And Then Came the Graphical User Interface......Page 66
And UI Evolved Yet Again: Conversational User Interface......Page 68
AI’s Role in CUI......Page 69
Pitfalls of CUI......Page 70
A Hybrid UI (CUI+GUI) May Be the Future......Page 72
Design Principles......Page 74
Creating a CUI Application Using Bot Framework......Page 75
Step 0: Prep Your Development Environment......Page 76
Step 2: First and Default Messages......Page 77
Step 3: Running, Testing, and Debugging Your Bot......Page 79
Step 3: Appointment Scheduling......Page 82
Next Steps......Page 85
Recap......Page 86
Chapter 4: Using Natural Language Understanding......Page 87
What Is NLU?......Page 88
History of Natural Language Understanding......Page 90
Complexities in Natural Language......Page 93
Statistical Models as a Solution Are Insufficient......Page 95
Language Understanding Intelligent Service (LUIS)......Page 96
Architecture of a LUIS-Based Software Application......Page 97
Behind the Scenes......Page 100
Extensive Training Is the Key......Page 101
Getting an Azure Subscription for LUIS......Page 102
Getting Subscription Keys on Azure Portal......Page 103
Applying Subscription Keys in LUIS......Page 104
Demo: Definition App......Page 105
Recap......Page 108
The Bing Spell Check API......Page 109
What Is It?......Page 111
Request......Page 112
Response......Page 114
Integration with LUIS......Page 115
The Text Analytics API......Page 117
Language Detection......Page 118
Request......Page 119
Response......Page 120
Key Phrase Extraction......Page 121
Request......Page 123
Sentiment Analysis......Page 124
Request......Page 125
Topic Detection......Page 126
Request......Page 127
Response......Page 128
Usage Ideas......Page 129
The Web Language Model (WebLM) API......Page 130
Response......Page 132
Request......Page 133
Response......Page 134
Request......Page 135
Request......Page 136
The Linguistic Analysis API......Page 137
Sentence Separation and Tokenization......Page 138
Response......Page 139
Part-of-Speech Tagging......Page 141
Request......Page 142
Constituency Parsing......Page 143
Response......Page 145
Recap......Page 146
Planning Your App......Page 147
What Should Be Done in LUIS?......Page 148
Creating a LUIS App......Page 150
Adding/Labeling Utterances......Page 151
Publishing Your App......Page 153
Adding Entities......Page 155
Simple Entities......Page 157
Composite Entities......Page 158
Hierachical Entities......Page 161
Prebuilt Entities......Page 163
Adding a Phrase List......Page 165
Active Learning Through Suggested Utterances......Page 166
Creating a Project in Visual Studio......Page 167
Handling an Entity-less Intent......Page 168
Testing the Bot in an Emulator......Page 169
Handling an Entity-Full Intent......Page 170
Handling an Intent with Composite Entities......Page 172
Publishing Your Bot......Page 174
Registering Your Bot......Page 175
Recap......Page 176
Chapter 7: Interacting with the Speech API......Page 177
Ways to Interact with Speech......Page 178
The Cognitive Search API......Page 179
Getting the JSON Web Token First......Page 180
The Consume Speech API......Page 182
Speech Synthesis......Page 183
Speech Recognition Internals......Page 186
Custom Acoustic Model......Page 187
Custom Language Model......Page 196
Pronunciation Data......Page 198
Custom Speech-to-Text Endpoint......Page 199
Speaker Recognition......Page 201
Enrollment-Verification......Page 202
Speaker Verification......Page 205
Enrollment–Identification......Page 206
Operation Status......Page 207
Summary......Page 208
Search Is Everywhere......Page 209
Pervasive, Predictive, Proactive (The Three Ps of Search)......Page 211
History of Bing......Page 212
Search APIs......Page 213
Bing Autosuggest API......Page 214
How to Consume the Bing Autosuggest API......Page 215
The Bing Image Search API......Page 218
How to Consume the Bing Image Search API......Page 219
Bing News Search API......Page 224
Bing Video Search API......Page 227
How to Consume the Bing Video Search API......Page 228
Bing Web Search API......Page 231
How to Consume the Bing Web Search API......Page 232
Summary......Page 235
Chapter 9: Working with Recommendations......Page 236
Understanding the Basics......Page 237
Frequent Brought Together (FBT) Recommendations......Page 238
Recommendations Based on Past History......Page 239
How Do These Recommendations Work?......Page 240
Recommendation Models and Types......Page 244
Recommendation Build......Page 245
Frequent Brought Together (FBT) Build......Page 249
Ranking Recommendation......Page 251
SAR (Smart Adaptive Recommendations) Build......Page 253
Setting Rules in Build......Page 255
Offline Evaluation......Page 256
Recommendation UI......Page 257
Summary......Page 261
Why Is AI So Popular?......Page 262
Improved Computing Power......Page 263
Data Is the New Currency......Page 264
Services vs Solutions?......Page 266
Challenges and the Future of NLU......Page 267
Challenges and the Future of Search......Page 268
Challenges and the Future of Recommendations......Page 269
Intelligent Edge......Page 270
Tasks, not Jobs, Will Be Eliminated......Page 271
So Where Do We Go From Here?......Page 273
Index......Page 275