Approximately when was the Dialog State Tracking Challenge (DSTC) series initiated, solidifying DST as a distinct problem?

Answer

Around 2013.

The formalization of Dialog State Tracking as a distinct and rigorous research area within the community is directly linked to the initiation of the Dialog State Tracking Challenge (DSTC) series. This series of competitive benchmarks began development and implementation around the year 2013. The establishment of these common evaluation platforms was critical because it allowed researchers to finally compare the performance of rule-based, generative, and discriminative systems directly against one another using shared corpora, such as the Pittsburgh bus data for DSTC1.

Approximately when was the Dialog State Tracking Challenge (DSTC) series initiated, solidifying DST as a distinct problem?
inventionAIStatetrackingconversation