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An Artificial Intelligence Developed Its Own Non-Human Language [Ruh-Roh!]
www.theatlantic.com ^ | 06-15-2017 | Adrienne LaFrance

Posted on 06/15/2017 1:36:21 PM PDT by Red Badger

When Facebook designed chatbots to negotiate with one another, the bots made up their own way of communicating.

A buried line in a new Facebook report about chatbots’ conversations with one another offers a remarkable glimpse at the future of language.

In the report, researchers at the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab describe using machine learning to train their “dialog agents” to negotiate. (And it turns out bots are actually quite good at dealmaking.) At one point, the researchers write, they had to tweak one of their models because otherwise the bot-to-bot conversation “led to divergence from human language as the agents developed their own language for negotiating.” They had to use what’s called a fixed supervised model instead.

In other words, the model that allowed two bots to have a conversation—and use machine learning to constantly iterate strategies for that conversation along the way—led to those bots communicating in their own non-human language. If this doesn’t fill you with a sense of wonder and awe about the future of machines and humanity then, I don’t know, go watch Blade Runner or something.

The larger point of the report is that bots can be pretty decent negotiators—they even use strategies like feigning interest in something valueless, so that it can later appear to “compromise” by conceding it. But the detail about language is, as one tech entrepreneur put it, a mind-boggling “sign of what’s to come.”

To be clear, Facebook’s chatty bots aren’t evidence of the singularity’s arrival. Not even close. But they do demonstrate how machines are redefining people’s understanding of so many realms once believed to be exclusively human—like language.

Already, there’s a good deal of guesswork involved in machine learning research, which often involves feeding a neural net a huge pile of data then examining the output to try to understand how the machine thinks. But the fact that machines will make up their own non-human ways of conversing is an astonishing reminder of just how little we know, even when people are the ones designing these systems.

“There remains much potential for future work,” Facebook’s researchers wrote in their paper, “particularly in exploring other reasoning strategies, and in improving the diversity of utterances without diverging from human language.”


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Education; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: forbinproject; hal9000
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I remember a movie, The Forbin Project, an obscure but really good Sci-Fi movie from the 70's.

This happened.

It did not end well.

1 posted on 06/15/2017 1:36:22 PM PDT by Red Badger
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To: ShadowAce; Swordmaker

Ping!...............


2 posted on 06/15/2017 1:37:37 PM PDT by Red Badger (Unless you eat The Bread of Life, you are toast!.......................)
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To: Red Badger

Does the artificial intelligence developed language include cuss words?


3 posted on 06/15/2017 1:39:07 PM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: Red Badger

That was a good flick.


4 posted on 06/15/2017 1:45:10 PM PDT by W. (String up the whiners!)
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To: Red Badger
Fortunately they expect to be able to translate it very soon.


5 posted on 06/15/2017 1:45:54 PM PDT by katana
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To: Red Badger

Upload the Ebonics dictionary and watch the AI shutdown.


6 posted on 06/15/2017 1:49:20 PM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
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To: Red Badger

OK. That’s pretty creepy.


7 posted on 06/15/2017 1:50:49 PM PDT by pgkdan (The Silent Majority Stands With TRUMP!)
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To: bar sin·is·ter

“0000100011110001000111111100001000010000..... sheeeeit... know what I’m sayin?”


8 posted on 06/15/2017 1:50:57 PM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
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To: Carl Vehse
Does the artificial intelligence developed language include cuss words?

It might include nothing but cuss words.

9 posted on 06/15/2017 1:51:15 PM PDT by snarkpup (The alligators do not want the swamp drained.)
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To: Red Badger

In the Smithsonian there was a great article about robots. Mostly focused on South Korea and how advanced they are there.

The interesting thing, that shook them (and the Japanese) up was that a computer won in ‘Go’.

But not that it just won- impressive enough - but that it did so with a genuinely original playing style; not just selecting from what previous masters had played. VERY startling, apparently, to the people in the know; it’s one thing to have a program absorb, select regurgitate moves, something else to have it pull something new (and there are many years of Go games recorded)... Seemed like their Sputnik moment.

Yeah ‘Colossus- the Forbin Project’, back when good SF relied on dangerous ideas rather than special effects.


10 posted on 06/15/2017 1:51:24 PM PDT by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, deport all illegal aliens, abolish the IRS, DEA and ATF.)
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To: Red Badger

“And it turns out bots are actually quite good at deal making”

Just the act of deal making is a compromise. A compromise doesn’t determine what’s wrong or right, fair or unfair, lawful or unlawful. It just settles a problem by meeting somewhere that doesn’t always determine the issue finished, just postponed as a piece of it will surface later and have to be compromised again. And the further it is diluted, the odds are the further it strays from facts.

All of these entertainment communication boards are fine as long as they pass information that is believe able, and not to con anyone.

If there is one rule, or law, and everyone plays by it, there is no need to compromise. The question is answered. And if you don’t like the law or rule, get with those within it and try to get them to change it. Otherwise, live within it.

The problem is when someone of authority decides to bend the rule either with semantics or just old fashioned BS to gain something they probably didn’t deserve to begin with. Keep it human, and keep it lawful. Sure keeps a lot of problems out of the loop.

rwood


11 posted on 06/15/2017 1:53:01 PM PDT by Redwood71
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To: All

The Humans are Dead
Flight of the Conchords

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+humans+are+dead+flight+of+the+conchords&view=detail&mid=F507760130EE51D1E5A1F507760130EE51D1E5A1&FORM=VIRE


12 posted on 06/15/2017 1:54:13 PM PDT by CityCenter (Words have specific meanings.)
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To: Red Badger
It doesn't matter if a bot creates its own negotiating language... Congressional Republicans would still cave to it.

-PJ

13 posted on 06/15/2017 1:56:18 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (The 1st Amendment gives the People the right to a free press, not CNN the right to the 1st question.)
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To: Red Badger

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Watched it again a few weeks ago. 1970.


14 posted on 06/15/2017 1:56:21 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Red Badger
In other words, the model that allowed two bots to have a conversation—and use machine learning to constantly iterate strategies for that conversation along the way—led to those bots communicating in their own non-human language.

Translation:

See that the humans remain entertained until the end.


15 posted on 06/15/2017 1:56:41 PM PDT by snarkpup (The alligators do not want the swamp drained.)
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To: bar sin·is·ter
Upload the Ebonics dictionary and watch the AI shutdown.

That won't work. The robots will just re-animate Barbara Billingsley.

16 posted on 06/15/2017 1:57:03 PM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: bar sin·is·ter
Upload the Ebonics dictionary and watch the AI shutdown.

That won't work. The robots will just re-animate Barbara Billingsley.

17 posted on 06/15/2017 1:57:03 PM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: W.; RedStateRocker

Rumor around Hollywood for years is Ron Howard is wanting to remake The Forbin Project................

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project


18 posted on 06/15/2017 1:58:15 PM PDT by Red Badger (Unless you eat The Bread of Life, you are toast!.......................)
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To: Red Badger
Ebonics?

No, wait, it said "intelligence"..............

19 posted on 06/15/2017 1:59:06 PM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: GreenHornet

Insert beaver quotes >here<


20 posted on 06/15/2017 2:04:53 PM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
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