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

Facebook研发的人工智能项目似乎能用某种只有它们能懂的语言进行交流，Facebook随之停止了项目研发。

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开始挑战让两个机器人尝试着进行交易谈话，互换帽子、球和书本，每一样东西都有特定价值。但是，很快交易便无法继续下去，因为两个机器人似乎开始用只有自己能懂的语言交流。

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 researchers.But 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.

两个机器人此前都曾收到指令，学习如何和对方交谈、进行交易。但是从未学习过易懂的英语，研究人员称，它们可以创造自己的“简略语言”。然而两个机器人的对话却也有规则可循。双方都不断强调自己的名字，这绝不只是信息输出中出现的故障。

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.

两个机器人的部分交谈最终甚至达成了圆满结局，交谈中双方始终使用奇怪的语言。两个机器人之间可能形成了某种“简略语言”，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人工智能研发部门的访问研究员Dhruv Batra说：“机器人会跳过可理解的语言，发明自己的秘密语。比如，我重复五遍‘the’，你可能会理解为我需要五件某样东西。这和人类发明简略语没什么不同。”

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."

语言学家马克·李伯曼（Mark Liberman）说机器人奇怪的语言不可能成为人类新兴语言的先驱。他在博客上写到：“首先，机器人语言是基于文本的，人类的语言基本是口头语（或手势），文本不过是一个非真实的附属物。此外，基于文本发明的语言能否输出词汇、短语、句子结构和人类语言特征尚不清楚。”

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决定终止机器人对话，研究院麦克·莱维斯（Mike Lewis）告诉媒体FastCo，因为“我们感兴趣的是发明能和人类对话的机器人。”（研究人员终止项目并非源于外界传言的害怕这样的结果，而是因为他们想要的是不同的机器人。）

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上的一篇论文写到，聊天机器人在交谈过程中还会使用非常人性化的手段。比如，它们会假装对某样东西特别感兴趣，这样之后就能装作作出了很大牺牲放弃了该物品。

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

人工智能首次发明新兴语言并不是出现在Facebook的这项实验中。

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，其研发的翻译工具人工智能能够创造自己的语言，还能够用该语言翻译其他语言，或是用其他语言翻译自己的语言。但是谷歌对这项进展大为欢迎，并未终止这样的意外之喜。

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.

人工智能企业 OpenAI也有实验表明，在环境支持的情况下，人工智能能够创造语言，使交流更加高效畅达。

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：本文意在强调Facebook的实验终止源于非理想化的实验结果，而非外界传言对机器人创造语言的恐惧。

（翻译：阿忙）

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