Juhua Huang


2025

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Compress to Impress: Unleashing the Potential of Compressive Memory in Real-World Long-Term Conversations
Nuo Chen | Hongguang Li | Jianhui Chang | Juhua Huang | Baoyuan Wang | Jia Li
Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics

Existing retrieval-based methods have made significant strides in maintaining long-term conversations. However, these approaches face challenges in memory database management and accurate memory retrieval, hindering their efficacy in dynamic, real-world interactions. This study introduces a novel framework, COmpressive Memory-Enhanced Dialogue sYstems (COMEDY), which eschews traditional retrieval modules and memory databases. Instead, COMEDY adopts a “One-for-All” approach, utilizing a single language model to manage memory generation, compression, and response generation. Central to this framework is the concept of compressive memory, which integrates session-specific summaries, user-bot dynamics, and past events into a concise memory format. To support COMEDY, we collect the biggest Chinese long-term conversation dataset, Dolphin, derived from real user-chatbot interactions. Comparative evaluations demonstrate COMEDY’s superiority over traditional retrieval-based methods in producing more nuanced and human-like conversational experiences.