A Functional Presence Engine, or FPE, is a probabilistic parsing mechanism that uses at least four components to respond to input patterns. It comprises a

lexing In computer science, lexical analysis, lexing or tokenization is the process of converting a sequence of characters (such as in a computer program or web page) into a sequence of ''lexical tokens'' ( strings with an assigned and thus identified ...

system, a probabilistic

fitness function {{no footnotes, date=May 2015 A fitness function is a particular type of objective function that is used to summarise, as a single figure of merit, how close a given design solution is to achieving the set aims. Fitness functions are used in genetic ...

, a knowledge base, and a library of functions that the knowledge base can trigger. The lexing system accepts and parses inputs and or query patterns. The probabilistic fitness mechanism determines close approximations and viable responses to the input patterns from a given knowledge base and then selects one or more functions that produce appropriate responses. A Functional Presence Engines is, subsequently, a stimulus-response mechanism that allows for a higher variability of inputs to elicit response patterns with a high likelihood of correctness, even from incomplete training. The system predates

SIRI Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

by six years. Such systems allow

conversational AI A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would behav ...

and

virtual assistant An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term "chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtual ...

platforms to respond correctly to new inputs outside their training sets – The US Army's Sgt Star being a prime example. FPEs are widely used for intelligent customer service systems and for digital assistants. FPEs have also been deployed as black-box solutions and embedded in security appliances.

History

The first Functional Presence Engine was deployed in 2001 by

Spectre AI Incorporated Spectre AI Incorporated was a private software company that served various government agencies and defense contractors in the early 2000s. The company is notable for having developed and deployed the first functional presence engine in 2001 (the s ...

. The technology and a number of embodiments were subsequently patented by Spectre AI's cofounder Robert Hust, the FPE's original inventor, and Mark Zartler who was Spectre AI's lead developer. The development of the FPE also resulted in an obscure markup language that the company referred to as FPML (Functional Presence Markup Language), which was based largely on

AIML The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when a group of prominent Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of British India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests on the Indian subcontin ...

(Artificial Intelligence Markup Language). The original FPE and FPML are now proprietary technologies owned by

Verint Systems Verint Systems is a Melville, New York-based analytics company which was founded in 2002. The company sells software and hardware products for customer engagement management and business intelligence. Their products are designed to assist clien ...

References

{{Reflist Chatbots Fuzzy logic