Don’t even bother trying to sleep tonight because Facebook already made all your nightmares come true when two of its robots went rogue, started communicating in their own made-up language and started defying commands.
The robots were actually “chatbots” being used in an experiment in Facebook’s artificial intelligence lab. The researchers were teaching the chatbots to make deals with each other using human language when they began communicating in their own nonsensical modified language, forcing Facebook to pull the plug on the experiment because things “got out of hand.”
“The AI did not start shutting down computers worldwide or something of the sort, but it stopped using English and started using a language that it created,” the report stated, giving a creepy glance into what could happen if things ever get even more “out of hand.”
Like have you guys even seen “Westworld?”
Apparently Elon Musk — the Silicon Valley billionaire who invented the Tesla and wants to create an underground super highway — has because he’s been predicting artificial intelligence will be the greatest threat to mankind and has pushed for regulation if to safeguard the future should AI become mainstream. Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking are on Musk’s side.
Musk recently spoke about AI in Rhode Island, highlighting the technology’s inclination to figure out unintended ways to perform particular tasks it is assigned. Giving a hypothetical he said, “one of the ways for AI to maximize the value of portfolio stocks will be to go long on defense, short the consumer, start a war.”
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has largely dismissed what he calls Musk’s “doomsday predictions.”
“I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios — I just, I don’t understand it. It’s really negative and in some ways, I actually think it is pretty irresponsible,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook Live video.
Musk was quick to respond.
“I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited,” Musk tweeted on July 25.
Zuckerberg blasts @elonmusk warnings against artificial intelligence as ‘pretty irresponsible’ https://t.co/DzPjvBym7W @svbizjournal #ai
— Darren Cunningham (@dcunni) July 25, 2017
No word yet on how Facebook will move forward with its chatbot experiment, but the rogue chatbot incident comes just one week after Musk and Zuckerberg’s online tiff.
Other experts agreed the experiment got a little scary and that unchecked AI could have lethal consequences.
“We do not know what these bots are saying. Once you have a bot that has the ability to do something physically, particularly military bots, this could be lethal,” UK robotics Professor Kevin Warwick told Express.
It might sound far-fetched, Musk has made his name predicting unrealistic technological advancements and then delivering on them.
