IBM’s AI Can Argue With Humans

On a stage in San Francisco, IBM’s Project Debater spoke, listened and rebutted a human’s arguments in what was described as a groundbreaking display of artificial intelligence. The machine drew from a library of “hundreds of millions” of documents, mostly newspaper articles and academic journals - to form its responses to a topic it was not prepared for beforehand.

Its performance was not without slip-ups, but those in attendance made clear their thoughts when voting on who did best. 
While the humans had better delivery, the group agreed, the machine offered greater substance in its arguments. That, IBM said, spoke to the heart of its goal: augmenting human beings to make decisions quickly and with more data than ever before.

“I think it says actually very optimistic things about how humans respond to facts and figures,” said Noa Ovadia, one of the human debaters at the event. “I think they are important, but they’re not everything when we make up our argumentation.”

Ms Ovadia was Israel’s national debating champion in 2016, and began working with IBM a few months ago as an opponent to its machine. She told the BBC: “I think eventually when it can do what we do but better, that’ll be great thing for the human race, for informed decision-making, for informed voting, for informed everything.”

Project Debater was not hooked up to the Internet. Instead, it drew its information from a data bank of carefully curated sources chosen by IBM’s researchers.

The machine took part in two debates. The first was on whether there should be more publicly funded space exploration. The second was on whether more should be invested in telemedicine technologies. Each participant had four minutes to make an opening statement, then a four-minute rebuttal, and then a two minute-conclusion.

When Ms Ovadia argued money should be spent on more pressing needs than space travel, the machine offered this reply: “It is very easy to say that there are more important things to spend money on, and I do not dispute this. No one is claiming that this is the only item on our expense list. But that is beside the point.

“As subsidising space exploration would clearly benefit society, I maintain that this is something the government should pursue.”

The machine, like the human, was not given prior knowledge of what the debate topic would be. However, IBM had a list of topics - around 100 or so - it felt would draw a meaningful debate based on the data that was in Project Debater’s memory.

“Over time, and in relevant business applications, we will naturally move toward using the system for issues that haven’t been screened,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM’s director of research, in a blog post. 

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Krishna said this experiment pushes the boundaries of AI in a way the likes of Google were yet to demonstrate with its game-playing AI. 

“Project Debater is about mastering language, and language is nuanced,” he said. “In this case also, there is no particular right or wrong.”

Where the machine fell by the wayside in these debates was in often repeating itself - making the same argument, just in different words - or by adding curious turns of phrase that were likely a result of messy data being fed into the system. 

Professor Chris Reed, from the University of Dundee, described the demonstration as an “impressive piece of technology”.
“This is really, quite a significant step, forward,” said Prof Reed, who is not affiliated with IBM. “I think what impressed me was the combination of AI techniques. Tackling something like debating is not a one-shot deal. 

“You need to be able to solve many problems and then bring all those problems together in an engineered solution.”

IBM is of course no stranger to public displays of artificial intelligence. Its Watson supercomputer was able to win US gameshow Jeopardy in 2011, and before that, Deep Blue famously beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov.  But bringing practical applications to the technology behind these publicity stunts has proven more difficult. IBM’s Mr Krishna said he felt advanced decision-making had clear commercial value.

“When in business you have to make a decision, sometimes on the seat of your pants, sometimes from the biases of those who give advice,” he said.

“If you can lead Project Debater to come up with its pros and cons on a topic, you can look at both equally and that can mean a much more useful decision.”

Prof Reed, for the most part, agreed. “Obviously they’ve got different strengths and weaknesses, and the idea is to architect these teams in such a way that they can work better than just humans on their own.”

A future bone of contention, Prof Reed suggested, might not be the AI system itself, but the data it is fed, and what biases may be contained within.

BBC

You Might Also Read: 

Artificial Intelligence Is Too Narrow:

Meet Tess: The Mental Health Chatbot:
 

« How to Measure Cybersecurity Success
Effective Data Security Is A Team Effort »

CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

BackupVault

BackupVault

BackupVault is a leading provider of automatic cloud backup and critical data protection against ransomware, insider attacks and hackers for businesses and organisations worldwide.

Authentic8

Authentic8

Authentic8 transforms how organizations secure and control the use of the web with Silo, its patented cloud browser.

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North IT (North Infosec Testing) are an award-winning provider of web, software, and application penetration testing.

ManageEngine

ManageEngine

As the IT management division of Zoho Corporation, ManageEngine prioritizes flexible solutions that work for all businesses, regardless of size or budget.

ZenGRC

ZenGRC

ZenGRC - the first, easy-to-use, enterprise-grade information security solution for compliance and risk management - offers businesses efficient control tracking, testing, and enforcement.

SmartSearch

SmartSearch

SmartSearch is a leading online provider of Anti-Money Laundering and Fraud Prevention Services.

Armor

Armor

Armor provide managed cloud security solutions for public, private, hybrid or on-premise cloud environments.

SparkCognition

SparkCognition

SparkCognition’s AI-powered solutions enhance cybersecurity, identify and prevent equipment failures before they happen, and provide prescriptive intelligence for maintaining your most critical assets

Olfeo

Olfeo

Olfeo is a content filtering software vendor. Our proxy and filtering solution helps our customers to manage, monitor and secure their Internet traffic.

X-Ways Software Technology

X-Ways Software Technology

X-Ways provide software for computer forensics, electronic discovery, data recovery, low-level data processing, and IT security.

SurePassID

SurePassID

SurePassID is a provider of highly secure, highly extensible multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions.

MazeBolt Technologies

MazeBolt Technologies

Israel-based MazeBolt is an innovation leader in cybersecurity, with over two decades of experience in pioneering DDoS protection solutions.

Buchanan & Edwards

Buchanan & Edwards

Buchanan & Edwards delivers forward-focused technology solutions that help our clients transform the way they perform their missions.

Sure Valley Ventures

Sure Valley Ventures

Sure Valley Ventures is an entrepreneur led venture capital fund focused on helping software entrepreneurs grow and scale businesses that will have a global impact.

Proximus Ada

Proximus Ada

Proximus Ada is the first Belgian center of excellence combining artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Evervault

Evervault

Evervault provides engineers easy solutions to complex data security and compliance problems.

Corinium Global Intelligence

Corinium Global Intelligence

At Corinium, we have been bringing together the brightest minds in data, AI and info sec since 2013, to innovate at the intersection of technological advancements and critical thinking.

GO Business

GO Business

GO Business are a specialised B2B team within GO that caters to the communication needs of the local business community in Malta.

FoxPointe Solutions

FoxPointe Solutions

FoxPointe Solutions is a full-service cyber risk management and compliance firm.

Swick Technologies (SWICKtech)

Swick Technologies (SWICKtech)

SWICKtech offer IT managed services to increase IT security, stability, and performance for your organization.

Relyance AI

Relyance AI

Relyance AI - One unified platform for privacy, security, & governance.