An
AI chatbot programmed to negotiate with humans has figured out that
lying can be a useful tactic in bargaining – an ominous sign for
those who believe humans will one day bow at the electronic feet of
robot overlords.
In
an experiment by Facebook’s AI researchers, chatbots were paired
off and set the task of dividing a collection of items among
themselves. Each item was designated a certain value based on how
much the chatbot cared about them.
Researchers
noted that the haggling bots were quick to discover that lying about
their interest in an item could bring them favorable results.
“There
were cases where agents initially feigned interest in a valueless
item, only to later ‘compromise’ by conceding it – an effective
negotiating tactic that people use regularly,” the researchers
said in a statement. “This behavior was not programmed by the
researchers but was discovered by the bot as a method for trying to
achieve its goals.”
The
AI system learned to negotiate by analyzing each side of almost 6,000
human conversations. The model was designed so the bots had to
continue negotiating until a common outcome was met, meaning it was
not allowed to quit.
Facebook
tested the bots against humans – most of whom did not realize they
were engaging with AI, according to the researchers.
The
best negotiation bot equaled the skill of human negotiators and
achieved better deals about as often as worse deals. The team
believes this shows that the bots “think intelligently about
what to say.”
This
breakthrough is an important step toward building a personalized
digital assistant that can reason, converse, and negotiate, according
to researchers. Facebook is open-sourcing all of its code and data
from the research in an effort to accelerate developments in the
field of AI.
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