Facebook shuts down chatbot experiment after AIs spontaneously develop their own language

Chatbot experiment: Facebook was forced to shut down the artificial intelligence models
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Fiona Simpson1 August 2017

Facebook shut down a chatbot experiment after two artificial intelligence creations began communicating in a language which evolved between them.

The social media giant was attempting to teach two AIs, dubbed Bob and Alice, the art of negotiation.

But, after leaving the pair alone, researchers at the firm’s artificial intelligence lab found they had deviated from the given script and had invented new phrases on their own.

They were attempting to imitate human speech but created a machine language of their own with no human input, scientists said.

Following the discovery Facebook decided to shut the bots down.

What did the bots say?

Bob: i can i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to

Bob: you i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have a ball to me to me to me to me to me to me to me

Bob: i i can i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have a ball to me to me to me to me to me to me to me

Bob: i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to

Bob: you i i i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have 0 to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to

Bob: you i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to

A spokesman for Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence Research (Fair) wrote in a blog: “During reinforcement learning, the agent attempts to improve its parameters from conversations with another agent.

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“While the other agent could be a human, Fair used a fixed supervised model that was trained to imitate humans.

“The second model is fixed, because the researchers found that updating the parameters of both agents led to divergence from human language as the agents developed their own language for negotiating.”

Chatbots are usually simple devices used in automated online chats to hold short conversations.

However, Facebook announced last week that it had created a code which allowed bots to have more sophisticated conversations with either another bot or a human.

The development allows AIs to negotiate with another party until an agreement is reached such as deciding on the value of an item, researchers said.

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