Very well. If I've ignored it in the past, I will have had my reasons, and your reluctance is then understandable.
You've been working as hard as anybody and I have no doubt that they were good reasons if you didn't have time to pay attention then. I don't mean to be an ass about it now either. I figure that if I make you go and look harder there's a strong chance you'll find something else that I missed. Then we can share and we'll both be better off. But trust me, there is some extremely advanced dialog research out there and it's ongoing and published in full by the people concerned.
Problem is I am actually well read! i have looked at most research and research is no issue for me; Reading papers and understanding the ideas presented even.. reproducing results... One thing is With experience Its very easy to discount research as being valid or valid to your project or even your discipline. This actually comes with time... there is not much to be excited for new developments ! simple! The ideas being currently presented are actually old ;
As you mention sir! that ways years ago and that technology is probably moot by now.
Reality: There are no real Achievements t this particular time; I believe locksuit mentioned some work being done with neural networks and googles deep mind.... That's not new...achievements its "News"...The new and exciting bag of words / word to vectors / etc.... this is not new... its new to the public and even new to academics but not new to the internet. as it also builds on other work....
Again Problem : when you have investigated for as long as we have its hard for new things to get through without us seeing it real quick. there are many forums(think tanks) being visited and obviously i'm in them all search for me; obviously for many years;
I have seen Don Patrick there probably since 1999......
the internet and new information sparked the imagination; as with all new developments but not all that glitters is gold. not everything is in the inter-webs!....neither the dark-web just for underworlds ....
I have noticed that books nowadays are getting expensive; those books with actual knowledge in , and even hard to find! Obviously Not everything is on Amazon! this is why often research takes you on journeys to other countries to speak to people actually pioneering this knowledge in universities or Communities of programmers / Thinkers with like minds... at events such as AI symposiums etc... Meeting with data scientist from Ethnic Countries; you will find that India also have a very high standard to Computing / N.L.P / Engineering....(not everything is in America/UK/CHINA)....
Not everybody has the same levels of exposure to knowledge or abilities in research; or capabilities!