Facebook Shuts Down Artificial Intelligence That Created Own Language No Human Understands
Facebook engineers shut down part of its new artificial intelligence (AI) system. Researchers took the AI offline following the discovery that it has been creating its own language which was not understandable to humans.
According to Fast Company, Facebook engineers discovered the AI's new language when the bots or agents, named Bob and Alice, appeared to communicate and complete tasks using unintelligible phrases.
For instance, Bob said, "I can I I everything else," to which Alice responded, "Balls have zero to me to me to me," which makes no sense in the proper English language. Yet the AIs were able to process tasks like they understood each other.
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Facebook AI researcher Dhruv Batra told Fast Company that it is common for agents to invent coded words. He compared this to humans developing shorthand to make communication simpler.
Another scientist from the social media platform's AI research team, Mike Lewis, stated in a post on Facebook that the project is a crucial step for developers who build bots or agents that can communicate, reason or negotiate. Shutting down Bob and Alice, however, was necessary because of the bots' unrecognizable language.
As reports pointed out, this opens up a "Terminator" scenario where bots or agents discuss things unknown to humans, which could potentially lead to the takeover of machines.
The news comes as Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg publicly debated the benefits and risks of AI. Musk wants the government to regulate its development as it could be a threat to humans, while Zuckerberg said Musk's doomsday prediction was irresponsible, citing that AI could considerably improve the quality of human life.
But the biggest threat others see regarding AI is not that it will take control over humans in the future. Rather, its potential to put humans out of their jobs, thus contributing to the decline of the labor market, which would be a more likely scenario, according to Slate.
