AI機器人竟然開始用人類聽不懂的語言對話了

Facebook abandoned an experiment after two Artificially intelligent programs appeared to be chatting to each other in a strange language only they understood.

Facebook研發的人工智能項目似乎能用某種只有它們能懂的語言進行交流，Facebook隨之停止了項目研發。

The bizarre discussions came as Facebook challenged its chatbots to try and negotiate with each other over a trade, attempting to swap hats, balls and books, each of which were given a certain value. But they quickly broke down as the robots appeared to chant at each other in a language that they each understood but which appears mostly incomprehensible to humans.

Facebook開始挑戰讓兩個機器人嘗試着進行交易談話，互換帽子、球和書本，每一樣東西都有特定價值。但是，很快交易便無法繼續下去，因爲兩個機器人似乎開始用只有自己能懂的語言交流。

The robots had been instructed to work out how to negotiate between themselves, and improve their bartering as they went along. But they were not told to use comprehensible English, allowing them to create their own "shorthand", according to there appear to be some rules to the speech. The way the chatbots keep stressing their own name appears to a part of their negotiations, not simply a glitch in the way the messages are read out.

兩個機器人此前都曾收到指令，學習如何和對方交談、進行交易。但是從未學習過易懂的英語，研究人員稱，它們可以創造自己的“簡略語言”。然而兩個機器人的對話卻也有規則可循。雙方都不斷強調自己的名字，這絕不只是信息輸出中出現的故障。

Indeed, some of the negotiations that were carried out in this bizarre language even ended up successfully concluding their negotiations, while conducting them entirely in the bizarre language. They might have formed as a kind of shorthand, allowing them to talk more effectively.

兩個機器人的部分交談最終甚至達成了圓滿結局，交談中雙方始終使用奇怪的語言。兩個機器人之間可能形成了某種“簡略語言”，使交流更高效。

“Agents will drift off understandable language and invent codewords for themselves,” Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research division's visiting researcher Dhruv Batra said. “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.”

Facebook人工智能研發部門的訪問研究員Dhruv Batra說：“機器人會跳過可理解的語言，發明自己的祕密語。比如，我重複五遍‘the’，你可能會理解爲我需要五件某樣東西。這和人類發明簡略語沒什麼不同。”

That said, it's unlikely that the language is a precursor to new forms of human speech, according to linguist Mark Liberman."In the first place, it's entirely text-based, while human languages are all basically spoken (or gestured), with text being an artificial overlay," he wrote on his blog. "And beyond that, it's unclear that this process yields a system with the kind of word, phrase, and sentence structures characteristic of human languages."

語言學家馬克·李伯曼（Mark Liberman）說機器人奇怪的語言不可能成爲人類新興語言的先驅。他在博客上寫到：“首先，機器人語言是基於文本的，人類的語言基本是口頭語（或手勢），文本不過是一個非真實的附屬物。此外，基於文本發明的語言能否輸出詞彙、短語、句子結構和人類語言特徵尚不清楚。”

The company chose to shut down the chats because "our interest was having bots who could talk to people", researcher Mike Lewis told FastCo. (Researchers did not shut down the programs because they were afraid of the results or had panicked, as has been suggested elsewhere, but because they were looking for them to behave differently.)

Facebook決定終止機器人對話，研究院麥克·萊維斯（Mike Lewis）告訴媒體FastCo，因爲“我們感興趣的是發明能和人類對話的機器人。”（研究人員終止項目並非源於外界傳言的害怕這樣的結果，而是因爲他們想要的是不同的機器人。）

The chatbots also learned to negotiate in ways that seem very human. They would, for instance, pretend to be very interested in one specific item – so that they could later pretend they were making a big sacrifice in giving it up, according to a paper published by FAIR.

FAIR上的一篇論文寫到，聊天機器人在交談過程中還會使用非常人性化的手段。比如，它們會假裝對某樣東西特別感興趣，這樣之後就能裝作作出了很大犧牲放棄了該物品。

Facebook's experiment isn't the only time that artificial intelligence has invented new forms of language.

人工智能首次發明新興語言並不是出現在Facebook的這項實驗中。

Earlier this year, Google revealed that the AI it uses for its Translate tool had created its own language, which it would translate things into and then out of. But the company was happy with that development and allowed it to continue.

今年年初，谷歌透露，其研發的翻譯工具人工智能能夠創造自己的語言，還能夠用該語言翻譯其他語言，或是用其他語言翻譯自己的語言。但是谷歌對這項進展大爲歡迎，並未終止這樣的意外之喜。

Another study at OpenAI found that artificial intelligence could be encouraged to create a language, making itself more efficient and better at communicating as it did so.

人工智能企業 OpenAI也有實驗表明，在環境支持的情況下，人工智能能夠創造語言，使交流更加高效暢達。

Update: This article has been amended to stress that the experiment was abandoned because the programs were not doing the work required, not because they were afraid of the results, as has been reported elsewhere.

更新：本文意在強調Facebook的實驗終止源於非理想化的實驗結果，而非外界傳言對機器人創造語言的恐懼。