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CIA Tested Primitive Chatbots For Interrogation In the 1980s

Posted by Soulskill on from the after-their-human-interrogators-couldn't-pass-the-turing-test dept.

New submitter ted_pikul writes: Newly declassified documents reveal that, 30 years ago, the CIA pitted one of its own agents against an artificial intelligence interrogator in an attempt to see whether or not the technology would be useful. The documents, written in 1983, describe a series of experimental tests (PDF) in which the CIA repeatedly interrogated its own agent using a primitive AI called Analiza. The intelligence on display in the transcript is clearly undeveloped, and seems to contain a mixed bag of predetermined threats made to goad interrogation subjects into spilling their secrets as well as open-ended lines of questioning.

41 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Skynet Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    {Error, string SkynetJoke982 not found} ha ha ha! Am I right fellow flesh bags?

    1. Re:Skynet Joke by durrr · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Do you admit that Oh Please Stop Drilling My Heelbones associates you to the plot to assassinate american diplomats?"
      "Tell me more about You Dumb Machine, I've Already Confessed. Is he one of your associates?"
      "You've already admitted that I Won't Tell You Anything, if you can tell us more about Beta_testentry_2_remove_this_before_field_testing we won't hurt your family"

  2. Later versions by MrDoh! · · Score: 5, Funny

    Recent versions were tested on youtube comments but someone forgot to turn it off.

    --
    Waiting for an amusing sig.
  3. Re:It seems that Republicans... by epyT-R · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Do these chatbots want the law deciding your fate in various contexts based on your skin tone? Your sex? Your orientation? While some of these chatbots would want that done with their religion as the guide, it's the democrat chatbots who have pervasively done this in the name of 'equality', social 'justice', and human 'rights.' the scarequotes denote newspeak use of the terms.

  4. Comparison by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    Analiza is an AI the same way that Babbage's analytical engine is an iphone. It probably just made the subject get mad and proclaim "I hate interrogators!"

    1. Re:Comparison by DavidMZ · · Score: 1

      Analiza is an AI the same way that Babbage's analytical engine is an iphone. It probably just made the subject get mad and proclaim "I hate interrogators!"

      Isn't that the point of interrogation?

    2. Re:Comparison by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Of course if you are not chatty with the chatbot it all becomes rather pointless. Of course the CIA since then resorted to torture, when it found it was far more profitable for the involved private contractors and corporations when 'suspected' terrorists said what ever the tortures wanted them to say or died of 'natural' causes. Can't be defending against all the claimed 'confessed' threats, unless people can be made to 'confess', to what ever insiders needed them confess to, so that billions could be spent defending against it. US intelligence services went right off the rails the more they privatised it and the more it was politicised.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:Comparison by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      I always figured that the CIA resorted to torture because there was evidense that the Human Race had changed since the interrogation methods used in the Korean War which created for terrorists than were ever captured. The CIA isn't stupid, something changed, it had to.

    4. Re:Comparison by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Your comment doesn't even

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    5. Re:Comparison by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Hey now, the analytical engine could be programmed by anyone without signing an agreement with Babbage and paying him $100 per year. No reason the punch cards couldn't be GPL-licensed either.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  5. Bender at puberty? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    "Fuck the pod bay doors, where's the human women!"

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  6. According to a wikileaks report... by ctrl-alt-canc · · Score: 1

    ...it seems that CIA is developing a USB waterboard to be interfaced with the interrogation chatbot.

  7. Leaked conversation by millwall · · Score: 2

    Alleged Agent: You are trying to frame me.
    CIA Eliza: Don't you ever say Hello?

    Alleged Agent: I have just been doing my job like any other businessman.
    CIA Eliza: What does that suggest to you?

    Alleged Agent: You must think I have broken the law.
    CIA Eliza: We were discussing you, not me.

    Alleged Agent: I only said my government will protest your treatment of me.
    CIA Eliza: Why are you concerned about my treatment of you?

    Alleged Agent: The State Department doesn't take kindly to this sort of thing.
    CIA Eliza: What makes you think that?

    Alleged Agent: You are a bastard and you know it.
    CIA Eliza: Perhaps you would like to be a bastard and me know it?

  8. They weaponised Eliza? by dbIII · · Score: 1

    I suppose that's what can be expected when there's enough sprawling mismanagement that you've got agents being fed LSD in some attempt to get super powers and a variety of other fuckups.

  9. Codename? by Skevin · · Score: 3, Funny

    > and seems to contain a mixed bag of predetermined threats made to goad interrogation subjects into spilling their secrets

    "Now, Mr. Jones, if you do not tell me what we want to know, you may well have the pleasure of finding out why the first four letters of my code name is 'Anal'."

    --
    "Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
    1. Re:Codename? by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      Lets see, CIA chatbot vs. Ikea assembly plans? I'd watch that on Pay Per View.

  10. Isn't that by Chrisq · · Score: 1

    a tautology

  11. It can't be pleaded with by darkitecture · · Score: 1

    The article emphasizes the sentence:

    When your captor is a machine, there is no humaneness to be found, and, hence, no one to plead with

    The first thing I thought of was that line from The Terminator:

    "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

    Come to think of it, that Terminator quote pretty much sums up arguing on the internet too.

    1. Re:It can't be pleaded with by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      I don't think there's an awful lot of "humaneness" in most people who are prepared to be torturers.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:It can't be pleaded with by timeOday · · Score: 1

      But the goal of interrogation is not simply "terminating" people, it is to get something from the prisoner. If what the prisoner says makes no difference, then they have no incentive to reveal information. The prisoner has to believe there is some way to stop the pain.

  12. However, it might have security holes. by Ihlosi · · Score: 1
    When your captor is a machine, there is no humaneness to be found, and, hence, no one to plead with

    However, unlike human captors, it might be vulnerable to buffer overflows, deadlocks, injection attacks, etc.

    1. Re:However, it might have security holes. by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      When your captor is a machine, there is no humaneness to be found, and, hence, no one to plead with

      However, unlike human captors, it might be vulnerable to buffer overflows, deadlocks, injection attacks, etc.

      Also unlike human captors, however, it could be expected to operate according to the rules it was given and not allow itself to be driven by anger or spite.

      So. in short, probably more "humane" than many of the human interrogators they've been employing since then.

      Actually, I have a mental image:

      Analiza: "Mr. Smith, I have evaluated the various enhanced interrogation options you programmed me with. It seems the only way to win is not to play."

    2. Re:However, it might have security holes. by TheCarp · · Score: 2

      Except your captor is never actually a machine, its humans, who are using the machine the same way they would use a car battery or water board. In the end, the purpose is to get confessions.

      In fact, at this, most torture techniques, and even many interrogation techniques that amount to little more than mental torture are quite effective. One of my favorites is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

      Notice throughout how the techniques approaches with the assumption of guilt and proceedes accordingly. It should be of no shock that many innocent people will make false confessions confronted with an officer using.

      In the end, no matter what, the computer is a prop, its all props designed to help elicit confessions. That is what they do, confessions lead to convictions, and convictions are the numbers they need to report, so that is what they get. You get what you measure....so you have interrogators building props.

      I assure you, they cry at night that they can't just use their polygraph prop.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    3. Re:However, it might have security holes. by PPH · · Score: 1

      Notice throughout how the techniques approaches with the assumption of guilt and proceedes accordingly. It should be of no shock that many innocent people will make false confessions confronted with an officer using.

      There's a subtle difference between police eliciting a confession and the CIA interrogating a captive. In the first case, the goal is an admission of guilt. Collecting information is secondary. In the latter case, its the information that is of primary importance. Most of the detainees in GITMO may be ready to admit that they are enemy combatants. But they won't spill the beans on their comrades. Or they'll give false information.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:However, it might have security holes. by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think that difference is less than you imagine. The thing is, the information will either lead to nothing, and be assumed to be lies, or lead to something, which will be assumed to be the truth, regardless of whether it is coincidence or not. Lets not forget, these are the same people who defined all males old enough to carry a gun as "militants" so that every drone strike is, by definition, a success as long as it kills someone.

      Its kind of like the whole drug dog thing. Police ask to search a car, they get denied, so they call in a dog. If the dog hits, they consider it vindication they were right and search. The dog hits almost every time due to clever hans effects (which has been well demonstrated with search dogs). If nothing is found, the assumption is that the driver got lucky and what the dog smelled just happened to not be there.... so really....every case is positive confirmation for them, even if it doesn't lead to evidence....because they can explain away the lack of finding evidence...as everyone that walks free is now "one who got away".

      I suspect these "intelligence" operations suffer from exactly the same confirmation biases.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    5. Re:However, it might have security holes. by PPH · · Score: 1

      The thing is, the information will either lead to nothing, and be assumed to be lies, or lead to something, which will be assumed to be the truth,

      And that's where the difference lies. In the case of real intelligence*, there will be corroborating evidence. Or if it turns out to be lies, not. The police are only concerned with getting a confession. Then its case closed. Unless some years later the Innocence Project files an appeal. Which doesn't happen enough to be statistically significant (although politically so, for high visibility cases) from a quality control point of view.

      *If your mission is to find WMD and they turn out not to exist, your intelligence was flawed. If it was to take out someone with a drone, then mission accomplished. Even if that poor sucker happens to be nothing more than the political rival of your informant.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    6. Re:However, it might have security holes. by Ihlosi · · Score: 1
      So you should phrase your answer in the form of cleverly devised SQL?

      Possibly. Something like that might make for an interesting scene in a movie. Captured subject utters a seemingly nonsensical phrase and interrogation-bot suddenly turns on the captors. Ooops.

  13. Puzzling Evidence by flyneye · · Score: 1

    PiL song Annalisa about a young epileptic Catholic girl being "cured/killed" by Exorcists
    Historical relevance; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
    Draw your own conclusions...

    Think I'm proud to be your enemy
    Take your hands off of me
    You're worse than the thing that possessed me
    They way they were
    The way they should have been
    Annalisa

    Annalisa was 15 years
    Stole her soul
    But I hear no tears
    Ever been alone
    And heard the voice
    Not your own
    I've seen those fears
    Annalisa

    Somehow you used ignorance for sense
    Melodrama in your eyes
    All concern rests with the dead
    Annalisa

    Annalisa had no escape
    Starved to death in a waiting room
    Cheap concern and rosary beads
    Did not solve screaming needs
    Annalisa

    Annalisa
    Annalisa was 15 years
    Stole her soul
    But I hear no tears
    Ever been alone
    And heard the voice
    Not your own
    I've seen those fears
    Annalisa
    Annalisa

    Think I'm proud to be your enemy
    Take your hands off of me
    You're worse than the thing that possessed me
    They way they were
    The way they should have been
    Annalisa

    Somehow you used ignorance for sense
    Melodrama in your eyes
    All concern rests with the dead

    Annalisa
    Annalisa
    Annalisa

    Crawl like rabid dog
    Annalisa (repeat)

    --
    *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
  14. Analiza by dcw3 · · Score: 2

    So I'm intrigued by the name. What were her interrogation techniques? Did she use an Analintruder? Cavity searches?

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  15. Re:Analiza by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    "This is not the kind of cavity magnetron you're looking for."

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  16. How Cute by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    I guess everyone has forgotten LISA? That one worked pretty fair. Maybe the crew that worked for the CIA could possibly create a Chatbot to "question" the laws that are created?

  17. Re:Analiza by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    Could this type of chatbot be applied to question Politcian's speeches?

  18. Re:It seems that Republicans... by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    Chatbots vs the Laws to be created? Cool, that would make some converstion starters.

  19. It's not the agents who were taking LSD by DavidMZ · · Score: 1

    Drugs, other chemicals, and different forms of abuse have been investigated by the CIA as interrogation tools in the frame of Project MKUltra. Compared to those, Analiza looks like a mildly annoying joke.

  20. Eliza on my EMACS editor by Andover+Chick · · Score: 1

    Thanks US government! I guess you funding the LISP guys who wrote Eliza. Chatting with her gave me plenty of relief on busy days back in the 1980s when I first started using EMACS.

  21. Makes so much sense now... by MrNiceguy_KS · · Score: 1

    So the CIA developed a primitive AI as a form of psychological torture, eventually the project was scrapped as frustrating and ineffective...

    ...so they sold the source code to Microsoft and they used it to make Clippy.

    --
    Redundancy is good And also good.
  22. In Soviet Russia ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... SQL queries you!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  23. as long as we're at it, by cellocgw · · Score: 1

    Detainee: Do you really expect me to confess to a machine?
    Analiza: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  24. Re:It seems that Republicans... by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 1

    This could explain why so many of them keep throwing Bengazi exceptions when you shoot down their other ideas.

  25. Re:It seems that Republicans... by Frnknstn · · Score: 1

    deciding your fate

    Your fate? Really? That is rather mystical of you. To quote the philosopher S J Conner, "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves"

    --
    If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
  26. The agents were taking LSD by dbIII · · Score: 1

    The agents were taking LSD and one jumped out a window under the influence. Keep reading the stuff you've linked to and you'll find it.