Cheng-Xin Xin


2025

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SQLWOZ: A Realistic Task-Oriented Dialogue Dataset with SQL-Based Dialogue State Representation for Complex User Requirements
Heng-Da Xu | Xian-Ling Mao | Fanshu Sun | Tian-Yi Che | Cheng-Xin Xin | Heyan Huang
Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing

High-quality datasets are essential for building effective task-oriented dialogue (TOD) systems. The existing TOD datasets often present overly simplified interactions, where users incrementally express straightforward requests that can be managed with basic slot-value style dialogue states, such as “hotel-area = east.” However, this approach does not reflect real-life scenarios in which users may express complex constraints and preferences. To address this gap, in this paper, we propose SQLWOZ, a novel TOD dataset designed to capture complex, real-world user requirements. The user requirements in SQLWOZ include the four categories: 1) multiple values for a slot, 2) excluded values within a slot, 3) preferred or prioritized values, and 4) conditional values based on other conditions. We utilize SQL statements as a formalized and expressive representation of dialogue states within SQLWOZ. To evaluate the dataset, we adapt large language models as dialogue agents and conduct extensive experiments on the SQL-based dialogue state tracking, dialogue response generation and end-to-end TOD tasks. The experimental results demonstrate the complexity and quality of SQLWOZ, establishing it as a new benchmark for advancing TOD research.