Researchers @ Facebook shut down AI that invented its own language
Researchers shut down AI that invented its own language
BY JAMES WALKER JUL 21, 2017
An artificial intelligence system being developed at
Facebook has created its own language. It developed a system of code words to
make communication more efficient. Researchers shut the system down when they
realized the AI was no longer using English.
The observations made at Facebook are the latest in a
long line of similar cases. In each instance, an AI being monitored by humans
has diverged from its training in English to develop its own language. The
resulting phrases appear to be nonsensical gibberish to humans but contain
semantic meaning when interpreted by AI "agents."
Negotiating in a new language
As Fast Co. Design reports, Facebook's researchers
recently noticed its new AI had given up on English. The advanced system is
capable of negotiating with other AI agents so it can come to conclusions on
how to proceed. The agents began to communicate using phrases that seem
unintelligible at first but actually represent the task at hand.
In one exchange illustrated by the company, the two
negotiating bots, named Bob and Alice, used their own language to complete
their exchange. Bob started by saying "I can i i everything else," to
which Alice responded "balls have zero to me to me to me…" The rest
of the conversation was formed from variations of these sentences.
While it appears to be nonsense, the repetition of
phrases like "i" and "to me" reflect how the AI operates.
The researchers believe it shows the two bots working out how many of each item
they should take. Bob's later statements, such as "i i can i i i
everything else," indicate how it was using language to offer more items
to Alice. When interpreted like this, the phrases appear more logical than
comparable English phrases like "I'll have three and you have everything
else."
English lacks a "reward"
The AI apparently realised that the rich expression of
English phrases wasn’t required for the scenario. Modern AIs operate on a
"reward" principle where they expect following a sudden course of
action to give them a "benefit." In this instance, there was no
reward for continuing to use English, so they built a more efficient solution
instead.
"Agents will drift off from understandable language
and invent code-words for themselves," Fast Co. Design reports Facebook AI
researcher Dhruv Batra said. "Like if I say 'the' five times, you
interpret that to mean I want five copies of this item. This isn't so different
from the way communities of humans create shorthands."
AI developers at other companies have observed a similar
use of "shorthands" to simplify communication. At OpenAI, the
artificial intelligence lab founded by Elon Musk, an experiment succeeded in
letting AI bots learn their own languages.
AI language translates human ones
In a separate case, Google recently improved its
Translate service by adding a neural network. The system is now capable of
translating much more efficiently, including between language pairs that it
hasn’t been explicitly taught. The success rate of the network surprised
Google's team. Its researchers found the AI had silently written its own
language that's tailored specifically to the task of translating sentences.
If AI-invented languages become widespread, they could
pose a problem when developing and adopting neural networks. There's not yet
enough evidence to determine whether they present a threat that could enable
machines to overrule their operators.
They do make AI development more difficult though as
humans cannot understand the overwhelmingly logical nature of the languages.
While they appear nonsensical, the results observed by teams such as Google
Translate indicate they actually represent the most efficient solution to major
problems.
Comments
Post a Comment