Playing by the Book: An Interactive Game Approach for Action Graph Extraction from Text
This addresses the challenge of understanding procedural text in material science, where data is scarce, but it appears incremental as it complements existing methods.
The paper tackles the problem of action-graph extraction from specialized material science texts by proposing Text2Quest, an interactive game approach where an agent executes procedures in a simulated lab environment, resulting in a prototype proof-of-concept.
Understanding procedural text requires tracking entities, actions and effects as the narrative unfolds. We focus on the challenging real-world problem of action-graph extraction from material science papers, where language is highly specialized and data annotation is expensive and scarce. We propose a novel approach, Text2Quest, where procedural text is interpreted as instructions for an interactive game. A learning agent completes the game by executing the procedure correctly in a text-based simulated lab environment. The framework can complement existing approaches and enables richer forms of learning compared to static texts. We discuss potential limitations and advantages of the approach, and release a prototype proof-of-concept, hoping to encourage research in this direction.