Facebook’s artificial intelligence research lab was training chatbots to negotiate. The bots soon learned the usefulness of deceit
Deceit & dealmaking
The bots feigned interest in a valueless item, so they could later ‘compromise’ by conceding it. ”Deceit is a complex skill that requires hypothesising the other’s beliefs, and is learnt late in child development. Our agents learnt to deceive without explicit human design, simply by trying to achieve their goals,” says the research paper
Has Terminator’s Skynet arrived?
The bots also developed their own language. The researchers had to take measures to prevent them from using non-human language. But the bots weren’t better at negotiating than humans. So the Terminator’s Skynet is not here yet, but should we be worried?
The fable of the sparrows
A colony of sparrows found it tough to manage on their own. After another day of long hard work, they decided to steal an owl egg. They reckoned an owl would help them build their nests, look after their young and keep an eye on predators
But one sparrow disagreed, “This will be our undoing. Should we not first give some thought to owl-domestication?” But the rest went on with their plan. They felt it would be difficult to find an owl egg. “After succeeding in raising an owl, we can think about this,” they said. Nick Bostrom narrates this in his book SuperIntelligence to illustrate the dangers of AI