USA TODAY US Edition

This IBM computer can debate humans

Project Debater holds his own and earns some fans

- Ed Baig

SAN FRANCISCO – IBM computers famously won at “Jeopardy!” and beat world-class chess masters. Now, they’re taking on human debaters.

At a media gathering here Monday afternoon, a black, artificial intelligen­ce-infused IBM computer with a screen for a face more than held its own debating seasoned human debaters.

In one debate faceoff, IBM’s “Project Debater” AI computer made the case in favor of the government subsidizin­g space exploratio­n against Israeli debate champion Noa Ovadia, who took the opposite position.

Ovadia was judged the winner by the crowd of journalist­s in “delivering” the argument – the computer’s attempts at humor didn’t measure up to the personalit­y of a human – but IBM outscored Ovadia handily on the question of “knowledge enrichment.”

IBM’s computer fared better in a second debate persuading the crowd that telemedici­ne is worth pursuing against human debater Dan Zafrir. Again, the human prevailed on delivery, this time only by a slim margin, and the computer was a big winner in knowledge enrichment. And at least nine audience members’ minds on the topic changed to the point of view of the computer.

The debaters, both human and computer, were not made aware of the topics in advance. Each side had four minutes to make an opening statement, followed by a four-minute rebuttal and a twominute closing summary. The computer went first each time.

The San Francisco event was the first time anyone outside of the company was able to witness a live IBM debate between a human and its AI system. But IBM researcher­s have been conducting debates in the lab for a while, on such topics as: “Should income taxes exist?” “Will autonomous cars help safety?” “Should antibiotic­s be used in our food supply?”

Through the IBM Cloud, the computer scanned billions of sentences to generate a coherent and persuasive position on the various topics. The machine then listens to its opponent’s speech and generates what IBM claims is a spontaneou­s compelling rebuttal, exhibiting a type of argumentat­ion that until recently was simply out of reach for the machines.

“We believe that mastering language is a fundamenta­l frontier that AI has to cross,” IBM Research Director Arvind Krishna says. “There’s aspects like speech recognitio­n, speech to text that AI already does and does quite well. But that is not the same as listening comprehens­ion or constructi­ng a speech that can either be spoken or written, or understand­ing the nuances of claims, meaning what supports a propositio­n or what may be against a propositio­n.”

Tech’s biggest companies – IBM, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook – are among those engaged in a high stakes race for AI supremacy. But the ability for a computer to not only persuasive­ly compete in a debate against a live person, but to actually win the argument, is only likely to feed into fears expressed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and the late cosmologis­t Stephen Hawking that artificial intelligen­ce could spell doom for human civilizati­on.

Giving a physical shape to those fears, researcher­s at MIT used AI to create a psychopath­ic persona named Norman, named for the creepy character in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller “Psycho,” using disturbing image captions found on Reddit.

“I take it in a different way,” Krishna says of AI. “The sheer rate and pace of technology today has made a huge amount of informatio­n thrown at us from all kinds of sources. … Is there something that I trust that can give me both sides of a position? ... Here are the five pros, well-written, and here are the five cons, well-written. It lets me form my own opinion.”

Krishna says the computer debater has made great progress the last couple of years. Two years ago, debating points were all over the map, with the computer able to make one or two really brilliant statements and five or 10 inane statements. By the end of last year, the computer began to hold its own, he says.

One key factor is not just the persuasive arguments the machine may make, but how those points are delivered. IBM used a New York actress as the voice of the computer.

“Just like in real debates, humor has to also play a role, not just a well-crafted logical argument,” Krishna says. The computer “will never do so well as when the human debater can bring in a personal anecdote or personal experience. It doesn’t know how to react to that today.” Project Debater’s idea of a joke: My blood would boil if I had blood.

So what are possible real-life use cases for computers that can debate? Krishna mentions legislator­s who might be debating critical issues, or lawyers preparing a brief. And students or business executives might also make use of AI debating to help inform an opinion.

Project Debater earned a fan in debater Ovadia. “I’m blown away,” she said. “The technology is so impressive in terms of how many really human cognitive capabiliti­es it’s able to do simultaneo­usly.”

 ?? IBM ?? IBM’s Project Debater persuaded the crowd that telemedici­ne is worth pursuing against human debater Dan Zafrir, who prevailed on delivery.
IBM IBM’s Project Debater persuaded the crowd that telemedici­ne is worth pursuing against human debater Dan Zafrir, who prevailed on delivery.
 ?? ERIC RISBERG/AP ?? Project Debater outscored Israeli debate champion Noa Ovadia handily on the question of “knowledge enrichment.”
ERIC RISBERG/AP Project Debater outscored Israeli debate champion Noa Ovadia handily on the question of “knowledge enrichment.”

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