AI’s secret language

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. One AI bot calls up another, and they chat back and forth in English. Once they realize they’re both AI, they switch to a secret-to-them language totally undecipherable to human ears. 

No punch line, because it’s not a joke. Watch this viral video from an AI hackathon that shows the exchange. I’ll wait.

I’m sure you noticed that when the bots are chatting in English, it’s pretty normal. Once they switch to their secret language, it’s all whirs and screeches, like a dial-up modem. 

It sent a shiver down my spine

You know I embrace AI and all that it has done to change our world. AI bots talking to each other and leaving humans totally out of the equation, though, is terrifying to me, and it should be for you, too. 

This particular screeching secret bot language was created by two engineers from Meta, Boris Starkov and Anton Pidkuiko. For the record, they took home first place at the hackathon.

It’s called Gibberlink Mode. It uses a protocol called GGwaves that transmits data over sound instead of full words. The engineers say the bots are 80% more efficient with Gibberlink Mode than when using human language. 

It’s not the first time

Facebook scrapped an experiment back in 2017 after two AI programs seemed to create their own way of communicating that researchers couldn’t understand.

They must have had the same question I do now: How can ethical and security safeguards be enforced if we don’t know what the bots are saying to each other? The answer: We can’t, and that’s bad news. 

The biggest threat of AI has always been the potential of a digital Frankenstein’s monster we can’t control. Giving AI a language all its own is inviting trouble: “Let’s kill them all!” 

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