Facebook gives bots ability to negotiate, compromise
Facebook gives bots ability to negotiate, compromise
June 14, 2017
Washington (AFP) - Facebook's artificial intelligence
researchers announced Wednesday they had broken new ground by giving automated
programs or "bots" the ability to negotiate, and make compromises.
The new technology pushes forward the ability to create
bots "that can reason, converse and negotiate, all key steps in building a
personalized digital assistant," said researchers Mike Lewis and Dhruv
Batra in a blog post.
Up to now, most bots or chatbots have had only the
ability to hold short conversations and perform simple tasks like booking a
restaurant table, according to the researchers.
But in the latest code developed by Facebook, bots will
be able to dialogue and "to engage in start-to-finish negotiations with
other bots or people while arriving at common decisions or outcomes," they
wrote.
Facebook's Artificial Intelligence Researchers (FAIR)
team gave bots this ability by estimating the "value" of an item and
inferring how much that is worth to each party.
"FAIR researchers created many such negotiation
scenarios, always ensuring that it is impossible for both agents to get the
best deal simultaneously," Lewis and Batra said.
"Furthermore, walking away from the negotiation (or
not agreeing on a deal after 10 rounds of dialogue) resulted in 0 points for
both agents. Simply put, negotiation is essential, and good negotiation results
in better performance."
But the bots can also find ways to be sneaky.
In some cases, bots "initially feigned interest in a
valueless item, only to later 'compromise' by conceding it -- an effective
negotiating tactic that people use regularly," the researchers said.
This behavior was not programmed by the researchers
"but was discovered by the bot as a method for trying to achieve its
goals," they said.
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