In terrifying news, two Facebook ‘chatbots’ have been shut down after they began communicating in their own made up language.
People initially thought that the two robots, named ‘Bob‘ and ‘Alice‘ (which is creepy as hell in itself!), were speaking gibberish to one another – but they understood each other perfectly.
Facebook researchers in New York set up Bob and Alice, in a bid to develop automated trouble-shooters for social media networks.
They were challenged to negotiate with each other over a trade, attempting to swap items including balls and bats which were given a certain value.
This was one exchange:
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
It looks like complete nonsense but the two robots understood what the other was asking in some weird sort of robot shorthand.
If you notice the repetition of certain words, it sort of makes sense. Well, kind of.
“There was no reward to sticking to English language,” Georgia Tech scientist Dhruv Batra told Fast Co. Design.
“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.”
UK Robotics Professor Kevin Warwick told The Sun: “This is an incredibly important milestone, but anyone who thinks this is not dangerous has got their head in the sand.
“We do not know what these bots are saying. Once you have a bot that has the ability to do something physically, particularly military bots, this could be lethal.”
“If one says, ‘Why not do this,’ and the other says ‘Yes’ and it’s a military bot, you have a serious situation, Professor Warwick continued.
“This is the first recorded communication but there will have been many more unrecorded.
“Smart devices right now have the ability to communicate and although we think we can monitor them, we have no way of knowing.”
Machines communicating with each other on their own? It’s definitely scary alright… We’ve seen Transformers.
And The Terminator.
And A.I.…
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