22. The system of claim 17 , wherein the formal description includes memory allocations for maintaining state of the interactive system.
17. A system comprising: a processor-based dialog module that receives and processes utterances from a speaker and outputs data used to generate synthetic speech outputs as responses to the utterances; a display module coupled to the dialog module and configured to automatically generate a graphical user interface (GUI) on a client computer operated by a caller; an interactive system coupled to the dialog module and configured to receive a task flow that describes operations of the dialog system and generate a script that is a formal description of the task flow, the interactive system configured to automatically generate the GUI from the script, the GUI configured for an operator to control in real-time collection and annotating of dialog data during a live dialog between only the dialog system and callers to the dialog system, the dialog data consisting of data of the live dialog; the GUI comprising a first portion for input of caller provided information, a second portion comprising an output control panel for control of the synthesized speech prompts by a human operator, a third portion providing status of a current task within the task flow, and a fourth portion providing an graphical representation of the task flow; and a processor-based detection module within the dialog module configured to detect the presence of an abnormality in speech processing during the task flow and automatically switching control to the human operator to allow direct interaction with the caller to correct the abnormality.