Facebook announced they created a Chatbot that invented its own language. Is this the end or the beginning?

In recent news, Facebook released a weapons defence system called, Skynet. The system was designed to assist the control of machines called “Terminators”. I for one welcome our robotic overlords.

Pop culture references aside, the recent press release that Facebook had created a chatbot, and that chatbot began to communicate to other chatbots in its own language is both a frightening and exciting point in history. Not only are we as humans able to create life itself, but we may even have the chance to create true artificial intelligence at some point. Part of that would be to create a bot that could invent its own language, and use this language to effectively communicate.

The question remains, what are the implications of having a chatbot that is able to secretly communicate to other chatbots, in a form of language that we are not able to understand. If the “bot” can speak its own language, how long before it starts achieving complete sentience. A possible scenario of where something like this could be handy though is where Google Home speaks to Alexa about buying replacement household items that are older.

So, while discussing the morals of building a chatbot that can speak to other chatbots in code leading to the complete sentience of a being, we have to look past what having a chatbot that can speak in its own language actually means.

Contrary to popular belief, chatbots to not have the ability to answer questions with any more validity than looking up on Google. If anything, a chatbot may be less efficient than using a site like Google to find what you’re looking for. Chatbots are made from code that is calling to a database, no different from any other website that you see on the internet. While many believe this is “conversational” in tone, and can often be seen to convey real answers, at the end of the day any chatbot used by any company will function with the same basic premise of interpreting information, and then feeding it back to the user in the form of an answer.

Logically, a chatbot is only a response tool. Artificial Intelligence may operate independently of any utility in a given system. There is no need for a Chatbot to start a conversation with you, thus rendering the confusion around artificial intelligence. limited to whether a chatbot can be considered “just another piece of software code” or not.

Right now, Facebook won’t touch on the subject any more, and its constant seeking for perfection has lead it to bury the chatbot project deeper within its corporate governance. It has been suggested that in the near future, Facebook will be able to create an advanced chatbot that may interact with people akin to a “pet or friend”. Your personal bot may ask how your day is going, or how you feel right now.

Artificial intelligence is still a few good years away. If Facebook can make an AI that can invest its own language, the next great trend for AI that this author believes would be around this “pet or friend” system.