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 system, a probabilistic fitness function, 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 by six years.[1]
Such systems allow conversational AI and virtual assistant platforms[2] to respond correctly to new inputs outside their training sets – The US Army's Sgt Star[3] 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.[4]