Dave Farber
2018-06-19 09:03:57 UTC
Date: June 19, 2018 at 13:41:01 GMT+9
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Man 1, machine 1: landmark debate between AI and humans ends in draw
Man 1, machine 1: landmark debate between AI and humans ends in draw
IBM shows off Project Debater, artificial intelligence project designed to make coherent arguments as it processes vast data sets
By Olivia Solon
Jun 18 2018
<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/18/artificial-intelligence-ibm-debate-project-debater>
It was man 1, machine 1 in the first live, public debate between an artificial intelligence system developed by IBM and two human debaters.
The AI, called Project Debater, appeared on stage in a packed conference room at IBMâs San Francisco office embodied in a 6ft tall black panel with a blue, animated âmouthâ. It was a looming presence alongside the human debaters Noa Ovadia and Dan Zafrir, who stood behind a podium nearby.
Although the machine stumbled at many points, the unprecedented event offered a glimpse into how computers are learning to grapple with the messy, unstructured world of human decision-making.
For each of the two short debates, participants had to prepare a four-minute opening statement, followed by a four-minute rebuttal and a two-minute summary. The opening debate topic was âwe should subsidize space explorationâ, followed by âwe should increase the use of telemedicineâ.
In both debates, the audience voted Project Debater to be worse at delivery but better in terms of the amount of information it conveyed. And in spite of several robotic slip-ups, the audience voted the AI to be more persuasive (in terms of changing the audienceâs position) than its human opponent, Zafrir, in the second debate.
Itâs worth noting, however, that there were many members of IBM staff in the room and they may have been rooting for their creation.
IBM hopes the research will eventually enable a more sophisticated virtual assistant that can absorb massive and diverse sets of information to help build persuasive arguments and make well-informed decisions â as opposed to merely responding to simple questions and commands.
Project Debater was a showcase of IBMâs ability to process very large data sets, including millions of news articles across dozens of subjects, and then turn snippets of arguments into full flowing prose â a challenging task for a computer.
The machine spoke with a confident female voice with a natural cadence, segues and organisational structure to its speech, but it lacked linguistic precision and argumentative clarity.
During the space debate, for example, it repeated the point that space exploration is beneficial to the economy several times using slightly different words. There were also times when the second clause of a sentence didnât smoothly follow the first clause. At other times, the AI system injected random anecdotes and quotes in a way that didnât feel entirely natural.
At one point, mid-sentence, the AI mentioned the astronaut Scott Kelley and then said âvoiceoverâ, indicating that portion of the argument had been taken from a video transcript.
Without hand gestures (well, without hands altogether) or facial expressions, it was also much harder for audience members to stay engaged when listening to the robo-debater.
The company has spent six years developing Project Debaterâs capabilities, including data-driven speech writing and delivery, listening comprehension for identifying key claims made within a speech, and the ability to formulate principled arguments. It expands upon the capabilities of IBMâs supercomputer Watson, which is being used by companies to mine huge internal data sets â including helping doctors diagnose different types of cancer.
The landmark event follows similar battles between man and machine, including IBMâs Deep Blue program beating Gary Kasparov at chess, Googleâs AI program AlphaGo beating the worldâs best players at the strategy board game Go and a program called Libratus beating four of the worldâs top poker players at no-limit Texas Hold âEm.
Using language and reasoning to debate is a far more complicated game.
âThe rules of chess are very few. The board is very small and the number of pieces is tiny. Even for Go, where the board is substantially larger, weâre still talking about an extremely bounded and well defined space,â said Chris Reed, a professor at the Centre for Argument Technology at the University of Dundee, who attended the
[snip]
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-------------------------------------------Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Man 1, machine 1: landmark debate between AI and humans ends in draw
Man 1, machine 1: landmark debate between AI and humans ends in draw
IBM shows off Project Debater, artificial intelligence project designed to make coherent arguments as it processes vast data sets
By Olivia Solon
Jun 18 2018
<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/18/artificial-intelligence-ibm-debate-project-debater>
It was man 1, machine 1 in the first live, public debate between an artificial intelligence system developed by IBM and two human debaters.
The AI, called Project Debater, appeared on stage in a packed conference room at IBMâs San Francisco office embodied in a 6ft tall black panel with a blue, animated âmouthâ. It was a looming presence alongside the human debaters Noa Ovadia and Dan Zafrir, who stood behind a podium nearby.
Although the machine stumbled at many points, the unprecedented event offered a glimpse into how computers are learning to grapple with the messy, unstructured world of human decision-making.
For each of the two short debates, participants had to prepare a four-minute opening statement, followed by a four-minute rebuttal and a two-minute summary. The opening debate topic was âwe should subsidize space explorationâ, followed by âwe should increase the use of telemedicineâ.
In both debates, the audience voted Project Debater to be worse at delivery but better in terms of the amount of information it conveyed. And in spite of several robotic slip-ups, the audience voted the AI to be more persuasive (in terms of changing the audienceâs position) than its human opponent, Zafrir, in the second debate.
Itâs worth noting, however, that there were many members of IBM staff in the room and they may have been rooting for their creation.
IBM hopes the research will eventually enable a more sophisticated virtual assistant that can absorb massive and diverse sets of information to help build persuasive arguments and make well-informed decisions â as opposed to merely responding to simple questions and commands.
Project Debater was a showcase of IBMâs ability to process very large data sets, including millions of news articles across dozens of subjects, and then turn snippets of arguments into full flowing prose â a challenging task for a computer.
The machine spoke with a confident female voice with a natural cadence, segues and organisational structure to its speech, but it lacked linguistic precision and argumentative clarity.
During the space debate, for example, it repeated the point that space exploration is beneficial to the economy several times using slightly different words. There were also times when the second clause of a sentence didnât smoothly follow the first clause. At other times, the AI system injected random anecdotes and quotes in a way that didnât feel entirely natural.
At one point, mid-sentence, the AI mentioned the astronaut Scott Kelley and then said âvoiceoverâ, indicating that portion of the argument had been taken from a video transcript.
Without hand gestures (well, without hands altogether) or facial expressions, it was also much harder for audience members to stay engaged when listening to the robo-debater.
The company has spent six years developing Project Debaterâs capabilities, including data-driven speech writing and delivery, listening comprehension for identifying key claims made within a speech, and the ability to formulate principled arguments. It expands upon the capabilities of IBMâs supercomputer Watson, which is being used by companies to mine huge internal data sets â including helping doctors diagnose different types of cancer.
The landmark event follows similar battles between man and machine, including IBMâs Deep Blue program beating Gary Kasparov at chess, Googleâs AI program AlphaGo beating the worldâs best players at the strategy board game Go and a program called Libratus beating four of the worldâs top poker players at no-limit Texas Hold âEm.
Using language and reasoning to debate is a far more complicated game.
âThe rules of chess are very few. The board is very small and the number of pieces is tiny. Even for Go, where the board is substantially larger, weâre still talking about an extremely bounded and well defined space,â said Chris Reed, a professor at the Centre for Argument Technology at the University of Dundee, who attended the
[snip]
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