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Future scary? Facebook AI bots created own language that humans couldn't understand

Sentient machines, technology being the ruin of mankind has been great fodder for Hollywood movies for years.

 Over the years, we have been fed with numerous doomsday events involving 'Frankenstein' scenarios where our own creations have ruined us (such as in the popular Terminator movie series).

 But for the first time, the technology is beginning to catch up to a point where reality might meet the fanciful minds of Hollywood screen writers.

 artificial intelligence's loyalty towards humans in the long Many tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Bill Gates are skeptical ofrun.

 They warn people to be cautious about AI and claim that it could pose a threat to our safety.

 If the recent incident involving Facebook's AI bots is anything to go by, they may very well be right in being wary.

Researchers at the Facebook AI Research Lab recently had to shut down two artificial intelligence bots after it was discovered that they were chatting to each other in a peculiar language that only they understood.

 Rather creepily, the two chatbots made changes to English to develop a new language that made it easier for them to communicate.

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This bizarre incident came to the fore after Facebook challenged the chatbots to try and negotiate with themselves over a trade. They were asked to swap hats, balls and books - each of which was given a certain value. The experiment quickly snowballed out of control and developed strange 'the machines are rising' characteristics when the chatbots decided English was not good enough for them.

 The humans who were tasked to look after them were at a loss to understand what they were saying.

Disturbing: The language has well defined rules

The most interesting and also deeply unsettling part of the whole incident is that there appears to be some well defined rules to the speech. The way the bots keep stressing their name appears to be a part of their negations and not just a glitch. The bots might have actually formed a kind of shorthand which allowed them to talk more effectively.

Zombies, witches, ogres, dragons and orcs will never exist. But sentient machines are highly probable. They are not just a figment of Hollywood's pro-active imagination. 

Speaking to the Independent, FAIR visiting researcher Dhruv Batra said - 

"Agents will drift off understandable language and invent codewords for themselves. 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."