BOTS INVENT LINGO
Facebook shock
What’s next, Skynet? Facebook was forced to shut down two chatbots in its artificial-intelligence division after discovering that they had created a language all on their own.
“I can can ii everything else,” one of the bots, dubbed Bob, was caught saying, according to The Next Web tech site.
“Balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to,” responded the other bot, named Alice.
Researchers believe the bots, or “dialog agents,” are issuing the strings of random-seeming words as a form of shorthand that they learned to use thanks to algorithms.
“You i everything else,” Bob told Alice after the first exchange.
“Balls have a ball to me to me to me to me to me to me to me,” she responded, echoing her earlier comment with a small change.
Bob then replied, “i can i ii everything else .”
Although researchers were convinced the bots’ talk was language, they could not say what the conversations actually meant.
The algorithms were cre- ated by the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research Lab as a way to improve the conversations the chatbots were having with humans.
But in their effort to boost the chatbots’ ability to negotiate and speak, the developers managed to give the AI system a key to creating their very own language.
Since the bots were not told to use English, they apparently deviated from the script in a bid to become better at deal-making. But that’s not all they learned.
According to Next Web, the researchers also discovered that the bots relied on advanced learning strategies to improve their negotiating skills — even going so far as to pretend they like an item in order to “sacrif ice” it at a later time.
“We’re not talking singularity-level beings here, but the findings are a huge leap forward for AI,” the site said.
Scientists and tech experts — including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking — have all warned that AI systems like Bob and Alice could one day become smart enough to wipe out the human race, much as Skynet did in the “Terminator” films.