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Google's AI Created Its Own Form of Encryption (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader shares an Engadget report: Researchers from the Google Brain deep learning project have already taught AI systems to make trippy works of art, but now they're moving on to something potentially darker: AI-generated, human-independent encryption. According to a new research paper, Googlers Martin Abadi and David G. Andersen have willingly allowed three test subjects -- neural networks named Alice, Bob and Eve -- to pass each other notes using an encryption method they created themselves. As the New Scientist reports, Abadi and Andersen assigned each AI a task: Alice had to send a secret message that only Bob could read, while Eve would try to figure out how to eavesdrop and decode the message herself. The experiment started with a plain-text message that Alice converted into unreadable gibberish, which Bob could decode using cipher key. At first, Alice and Bob were apparently bad at hiding their secrets, but over the course of 15,000 attempts Alice worked out her own encryption strategy and Bob simultaneously figured out how to decrypt it. The message was only 16 bits long, with each bit being a 1 or a 0, so the fact that Eve was only able to guess half of the bits in the message means she was basically just flipping a coin or guessing at random.ArsTechnica has more details.

137 comments

  1. or guessing at random by gti_guy · · Score: 2

    That's PSEUDO-random to you, buster!

    1. Re:or guessing at random by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Or as our 2 year old pronounces "Buster" - a cat in one of her books: "Bastard".

  2. First AI Post by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    Illkay allway umanshay.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:First AI Post by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Hmmm....16 bits...."Kill all humans!" has 16 characters including spaces and punctuation.....coincidence?

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:First AI Post by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      Not to ruin a good joke, but at least with ASCII, each character is a byte, I think... :)

    3. Re:First AI Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Illkay allway umanshay.

      Kill wall humans?

    4. Re:First AI Post by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Now that the computers can create their own encryption humans can't read- the google developers can't know for sure that the AI ISN'T trying to kill all humans. If AI was passing that message unencrypted, at least we would know we could prepare to defend ourselves. Now we'll never see it coming.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    5. Re:First AI Post by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

      Trump supporters?

    6. Re:First AI Post by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      7 bits.

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    7. Re:First AI Post by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      Technically 8, even thought the last bit doesn't get used.

    8. Re:First AI Post by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      That's what I thought!

    9. Re:First AI Post by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      Well played, well played.

    10. Re:First AI Post by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      Kill the wall, humans, vote Hillary

    11. Re:First AI Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hillary calls them "deplorable". At least they aren't criminal.

    12. Re:First AI Post by lgw · · Score: 1

      6 bits if you don't care about preserving case (chr - 0x20) & 0x3f

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    13. Re:First AI Post by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      Only 5.33 bits if you use RAD50, or 5 bits if you use Baudot.

      Eveway isway away oofusday.

    14. Re:First AI Post by lgw · · Score: 1

      If you just need letters, 5 bits is easy, though a Morse-style encoding that optimizes for common letters would do quite well.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    15. Re:First AI Post by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      no, 7.
      The ASCII standard is 7 bits, that there are 8 in a byte means that it usually consumes 8 bits.
      Case in point when Wordstar (in)famously used the high bit to flag last char in string they didn't violate ascii, because the 8th bit was not part of the standard, but they still broke the defacto standard because no one else could make use of it.
      -nB

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    16. Re:First AI Post by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly why I wrote "Technically 8, even thought the last bit doesn't get used."

    17. Re:First AI Post by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      IE, although the documentation uses 7 bits, no one uses 7-bits for ASCII anymore. They always use 8 bits, and the last one must be a 0.

    18. Re:First AI Post by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

      See: UTF-8.

      When was the last time someone used UTF-7?

    19. Re:First AI Post by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      ...or the first one, depending on the way most people ([citation needed]-ing myself) count them.

    20. Re:First AI Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both Trump and Hillary are deplorable..... Criminal too probably.

    21. Re:First AI Post by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      Wordstar was released in June 1979 but the Apple 2 (][ //e //c) also used "high-bit" ASCII two years earlier in April 1977.

      i.e.

      .1 LDA $C000 ; read keyboard
          BPL .1
          STA $C010 ; clear keyboard
        ; A >= $80

      Reading a native character had the high bit set. Writing a character to screen required the high-bit ALSO set unless you specifically wanted INVERSE (0x00..0x3F) or FLASHing characters (0x40..0x7F). See Beagle Bros Peeks and Pokes Chart

      > but they still broke the defacto standard because no one else could make use of it.

      That's not technically true. Apple DOS 3.2 and 3.3 also used the same trick to signal end-of-string.

      Remember, at the time there were 3 ways to signal end-of-string:

      * C's null-terminated (ASCIIZ) -- last byte is zero.
      * Pascal's first-byte-string-length
      * Dextral Character Inverted (DCI) -- the last byte has the sign bit flipped. (This was popular on Apple 2 assemblers such as Merlin. Thankfully this pseudo-opcode has been preserved on modern assemblers)

      --
      First Contact is scheduled for ~ 2024. Are you ready to accept the facts that humans were genetically engineered?

    22. Re:First AI Post by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      If an AI system can create strong encryption, a second AI system can figure out the keys and the algorithm(s).

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  3. let me be the first to write.. by e432776 · · Score: 1

    ..what could possibly go wrong?

  4. No way this can end badly for humanity.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Next, let's teach them how to create viruses and design new neurotoxins, now that they can communicate secretly amongst themselves.

    1. Re: No way this can end badly for humanity.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of legal rights does AI have? Who will own something created by an AI? Whom will the FBI sue when they want to break an AI-created encryption?

    2. Re: No way this can end badly for humanity.... by Coisiche · · Score: 2

      When will they explain to the AI (I know it's not really) that it can go to prison for not relinquishing encryption keys, and then show it some bleak prison dramas so that it can know what to expect...

      And that people, is why SkyNet launched the nukes.

  5. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You need to learn marketing skills.

  6. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We don't have AI, and we likely never will.

    Surely you're not naive enough to actually believe that?

  7. each bit being a 1 or a 0 by Billhead · · Score: 0

    The message was only 16 bits long, with each bit being a 1 or a 0

    This is nothing impressive if they are limiting each bit to only 1's and 0's.

    1. Re:each bit being a 1 or a 0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are bits. They can only be one of two states. We can call them Bweryang and Bob, if you like, but it won't change the way they work ...

    2. Re:each bit being a 1 or a 0 by Coisiche · · Score: 1

      For this audience "The message was only 16 bits long" would have been sufficient, I can see why the editors' summarizing skills are so frequently ridiculed.

      However that means the message is only 2 one-byte characters. I don't think the machines will concoct a plan to eliminate all humans in 2 bytes.

    3. Re:each bit being a 1 or a 0 by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      Bit is an abbreviation of Binary Digit. If it can have more than 2 values it's not a 'bit', it's a 'symbol'.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    4. Re:each bit being a 1 or a 0 by HiThere · · Score: 1

      At one time, I think in the early 1950's, someone built a memory store that could handle 10 values...those weren't bits, and symbol is too general. Those were digits.

      P.S.: The device turned out to be too slow to compete against two state devices. Something along this line has happened multiple times since then, but never with at many as 10 states unless you could qubits, where I can't really say how many states they have.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    5. Re:each bit being a 1 or a 0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's wrong. It's not usually done, but 1, 0 and -1 are possible.

  8. Disappointing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If humanity is going to be destroyed by an AI it had better have a cool name. Skynet for example wold be acceptable, but names like Alice, Bob or Eve are not by any means cool enough.

  9. Obligatory Colossus quote by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

    Well, there it is..
    There's the common basis for communication.
    A new language.
    An inter-system language.
    A language only those machines can understand.

    1. Re:Obligatory Colossus quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  10. Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are you capable of reading the dictionary?

    Full Definition of artificial intelligence
    1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers
    2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior

    See? AI is imitation. "TRUE" AI is just imitation. That's all it needs to be to qualify as "AI."

    We have true AI. Today. And it gets better every day. You post your stupid "this isn't AI" comment with every single story about it, and you are dead wrong every single time. I predict that in every future article about AI, you will post the same inane comment, and you will be wrong then, too.

    1. Re:Shut up, indeed. by wbr1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you capable of reading the dictionary?

      Full Definition of artificial intelligence 1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers 2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior

      See? AI is imitation. "TRUE" AI is just imitation. That's all it needs to be to qualify as "AI."

      We have true AI. Today. And it gets better every day. You post your stupid "this isn't AI" comment with every single story about it, and you are dead wrong every single time. I predict that in every future article about AI, you will post the same inane comment, and you will be wrong then, too.

      +1. Once it is no longer imitation we should drop the A from AI. At that point it is just intelligence.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    2. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it wasn't imitation it wouldn't be artificial.

    3. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we only first could come up with a definition of what being "intelligent" actually means.

    4. Re:Shut up, indeed. by swb · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is Slashdot, where AI is only AI if it is self-aware, science fiction AI. Anything other than that is just software and there is no scoped or functionally limited AI.

    5. Re:Shut up, indeed. by quintus_horatius · · Score: 3, Funny

      See? AI is imitation. "TRUE" AI is just imitation.

      What about fake AI?

    6. Re:Shut up, indeed. by freeze128 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How about EI for "Electronic Intelligence"?

    7. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ELINT is already a thing, it means something completely different.

    8. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another annoying dissenter here.

      By your definition we've had AI since we had mechanical adding machines. It did something "intelligent", it added numbers. When somebody pulled the crank.

      AI to me will always require intelligence, which is basically synonymous with self-awareness. The rest is just marketing.

    9. Re: Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It might be a valid point. What we have now are techniques which mimic some limited subsets of what generally takes an intelligent mind to achieve. But then a CNC machine can achieve a level of carpentry skill that is beyond mine, but I don't ascribe intelligence to it. The question becomes what set of qualities or combination of operations is sufficient to count as intelligent? Is learning sufficient, and how do we distinguish that from creation of classifiers of inputs that trigger sequences of actions, or is a sufficiently sophisticated set of classifiers that are tuned based on input and can trigger actions learning analogous to human learning?

    10. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      I, too, once wondered what a simulated song could possibly be .. until I played Dwarf Fortress 0.42.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    11. Re:Shut up, indeed. by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      See? AI is imitation. "TRUE" AI is just imitation.

      What about fake AI?

      like This one?

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    12. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right.

      Just like Wifi was a dumb word. So was cloud. So was autonomous vehicle. So is devops.

      But you're right, they're here to stay, so just accept the new speak and don't worry about it.

      I think the panties in a bunch crowd should start saying "self-aware AI"

    13. Re: Shut up, indeed. by omnichad · · Score: 1

      But then a CNC machine can achieve a level of carpentry skill that is beyond mine, but I don't ascribe intelligence to it.

      Right, but you don't call it an artificial carpenter.

      If self-aware "AI" is ever created, it will no longer be artificial.

    14. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      MI or Machine Intelligence is already commonly used.

    15. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you capable of reading the dictionary?

      Full Definition of artificial intelligence
      1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers
      2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior

      See? AI is imitation. "TRUE" AI is just imitation. That's all it needs to be to qualify as "AI."

      We have true AI. Today. And it gets better every day. You post your stupid "this isn't AI" comment with every single story about it, and you are dead wrong every single time. I predict that in every future article about AI, you will post the same inane comment, and you will be wrong then, too.

      So, a calculator could be considered AI because it can imitate a human calculating basic addition.

    16. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Artificial means "made by humans". e.g. Artifact.

      hehe, captcha is "automata"

    17. Re:Shut up, indeed. by lgw · · Score: 1

      MI or Machine Intelligence is already commonly used.

      This. AI is faking it. Machine Intelligence is sapience-on-silicon.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    18. Re:Shut up, indeed. by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This isn't simulating OR imitating intelligent human behavior. This is just a program running an algorithm. Every fucking time some "researcher" comes out with a new "AI program" you AI nutters salivate. Meanwhile we aren't any closer to AI than we were in 1970.

    19. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What about fake AI?"

      Just read a few posts on the internet and you will discover it...

    20. Re:Shut up, indeed. by I4ko · · Score: 1

      Perhaps because people here actually understand how to design and write algorithms and how those execute.

    21. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior

      What about the ability of a machine to imitate human behavior?

    22. Re:Shut up, indeed. by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Your UID is low enough to remember the real Slashdot, when computers that could translate the world's languages in better than realtime, drive cars better than humans, and beat the best chess players would definitely have been AI.

      We seem to have been invaded by irritable American political pundits in the meantime.

    23. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fake AI is when a human attempts to fool another human into believing they are conversing with an AI, when really it's a human.

    24. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The word "intelligent" has existed for centuries. It is part of common vocabulary, and its meaning is widely understood. You can look it up in any dictionary.

      An exacting, scientifically accurate and precise definition that draws clear and easily-validated distinctions between "intelligence" and "data processing" is impossible. The concepts overlap too heavily to ever be differentiated. The word "intelligent" must be vague in order to be useful, so we will never have the kind of definition that you are hoping for.

      Any conversation about "artificial intelligence" that aims for that kind of precision will also be impossible, since it is already poisoned by vagueness at its foundation.

      A lot of the real world is like that, actually.

    25. Re: Shut up, indeed. by swb · · Score: 2

      I think intelligence is too broad of a word and implies too many assumptions and is probably a poor word for "artificial intelligence" becomes it implies a lot of things, such as agency, autonomy, understanding, infinite scope, and human-like communication and personality.

      I think the human-like part is partly what keeps people from seeing other forms of AI; they don't stop to think about intelligences that may not look, communicate or act like people or necessarily be coherent platforms or systems.

    26. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Gussington · · Score: 1

      Full Definition of artificial intelligence 1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers 2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior

      See? AI is imitation. "TRUE" AI is just imitation. That's all it needs to be to qualify as "AI."

      To be fair, what level of accuracy do you have to have to qualify as "imitation"? Is a square an imitation of a circle? If I throw a bunch of buckets on the concrete, am I playing music?
      If that is the case then an Abacus is AI too yeah? Since it imitates the human behaviour of adding numbers?

      We have true AI. Today. And it gets better every day.

      We have something labelled AI, which most regular people find to be quite stupid. And "getting better" doesn't mean much when you're going from completely useless to only mildly useless. Perhaps we should save the use of the word "intelligence" until it achieves some level comparable to average human intelligence?

      You post your stupid "this isn't AI" comment with every single story about it, and you are dead wrong every single time.

      I agree with GP. Current AI today doesn't qualify for either definition. And the heavy use of the word every single fucking week to try and pretend that AI is great when it really actually sucks is quite annoying.

    27. Re:Shut up, indeed. by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      It's been done. That would be the Mechanical Turk.

    28. Re:Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about EI for "Electronic Intelligence"?

      That's EIEIO to you, Macdonald!

    29. Re: Shut up, indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      EL Guapo... Would be much cool.. aka The Handsome.....

    30. Re:Shut up, indeed. by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      People who know, know that for 20 years it has been "AS" = Artificial Stupid.

      Arguing whether computers can have True Intellegence is an exercise in futility, sinse Humans do not have True Intellegence! ;-)

    31. Re:Shut up, indeed. by syntotic · · Score: 1

      Sounds more like random drift. Tell the computer: send this but do not send it exactly equal. The computer responds making changes to it, end of the story. No time to read and analyze but unless there is SOME way for Eve to cause consequences to either Alice or Bob or both because she did manage to intercept a message, this result is not really meaningful. I would even give Eve access to... AI methods to perform her interception job! I agree, AI is not here and none of us will see it in our lifetimes, but still we can enjoy better and better generic, unspecific algorithms/programs performing their feats.

    32. Re: Shut up, indeed. by breakermelvin · · Score: 1

      Computers can not translate a language such as Tagalog. It's very slangy, idiosyncratic, and gossipy. It's human.

  11. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That poster, 110010001000, is an idiot. Look at his prior posting history and you will see a mountain of stupidity. He doesn't have a clue what he is talking about most of the time.

  12. Re:Oh shut up by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

    We don't have AI, and we likely never will.

    Surely you're not naive enough to actually believe that?

    I'm fairly confident we don't currently have AI (but if we secretly do then I put my bets on Clinton and Trump both being androids)
    My guess is also that the first true "AI" will likely not be 100% silicon based.

  13. Not enough data by Comboman · · Score: 4, Insightful
    So an AI was able to make an encryption that another AI couldn't break. I don't know whether to be impressed or not because I don't know:

    a) Whether the code could be easily decrypted by human codebreakers.

    b) Whether the codebreaking AI is able to break codes designed by humans.

    --
    Support Right To Repair Legislation.
    1. Re:Not enough data by lgw · · Score: 1

      It's a dancing bear - the point is not how well the bear dances.

      The encryption is trivial. The point is that neural nets were able to come up with anything. The impressive part, as I understand it, was that there was no side channel here. Anything Alice and Bob said while developing the encryption - the whole process of agreeing on how it works - was overhead by Eve. That's kind of neat, for some neural nets trying shit at (weighted) random.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    2. Re:Not enough data by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      "See that bear over there laying on the grass? It's a dancing bear".
      "It doesn't seem to be doing much of what we'd call 'dancing', is it?"

      It's a dancing bear - the point is not how well the bear dances.

      Anything Alice and Bob said while developing the encryption - the whole process of agreeing on how it works - was overhead by Eve.

      The experiment started with a plain-text message that Alice converted into unreadable gibberish, which Bob could decode using cipher key.

      Alice and Bob started with an encryption system and then developed one of their own.

    3. Re:Not enough data by Gussington · · Score: 1

      "See that bear over there laying on the grass? It's a dancing bear". "It doesn't seem to be doing much of what we'd call 'dancing', is it?"

      And if you look closely it's not even a bear, it's a huge pile of poo that sort of looks a bit like sleeping bear if you half close your eyes. But since I'm researching dancing bears, and this is part of my research, it qualifies as a dancing bear.

  14. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Would you agree there are varying levels of intelligence in the natural world?

  15. Cute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cute, but kinda disappointing. Basically, the "AI" kept banging on, randomly trying crap "cyphers" until they made something that a third "AI" couldn't break by randomly flipping bits until the text was decoded.

    This isn't AI. This is more like an old game I played where you trained pseudo AI warriors by setting them loose on a battlefield and letting them learn by themselves how to fight and survive.

    Essentially, they started as really stupid bots that couldn't even walk in a straight line. To teach them how to fight, you'd set up an objective (say, go to flag) and let them wander around by themselves. The game would "reward" your bots for completing or coming close to the objective. The reward came in the form of "fitness" points. At the end of a pre-determined time, the bots with the lowest fitness would be killed, and new bots would be spawned.

    The bots that were spawned would have "programming" similar to the fit bots that survived the previous round, but with small-ish changes in their programming (for example, instead of always turning left every time it hits a wall, it might decide to go right with 50% probability).

    Over thousands of iterations of randomly trying stuff, they'd eventually learn how to walk on a straight line. Then you'd teach them how to avoid obstacles by placing walls around the battlefield (and watch in dismay as your top of the line warriors walk straight into a wall for the first few hundred generations or so), and how to fight by rewarding them for killing enemy bots.

    Once they were ready, you could set up battles and capture the flag type games with your bots.

    It was kinda fun, but mainly it was a cute demonstration of natural selection in action (the, so called, genetic algorithms). You could learn a few things, like, for example, that brutally culling your bot herd by setting unreasonable objectives (reach objective flag in 5 seconds), and manually killing off anyone that doesn't meet your unreasonable criteria, would not necessarily produce more effective fighters, because you'd not be rewarding good fighters, you'd be rewarding people that rush straight into the objective, that would be killed by slower, more deliberate actors.

    The game was called NERO: Neuro Evolving Robotic Operatives. I haven't played it in ages so I can't say how well it plays right now. You can find it here (I think): http://nerogame.org/

    1. Re:Cute by bfpierce · · Score: 2

      Yes, you've manged to successfully (in way too many words) describe what 'deep learning' is.

    2. Re:Cute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:Cute by Megane · · Score: 1

      In other words, they set artificial intelligences to the task of rolling their own encryption, and just like real intelligences, they came up with Security Through Obscurity(tm)!

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  16. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's probably someone testing an AI and it doesn't want people to believe AI exist!

    !!

  17. Anti Turing Test? by NEDHead · · Score: 1

    So AI works if it passes the Turing test, or if we can't understand them at all?....

    1. Re:Anti Turing Test? by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      Since the message was only 16 bits, wait until the cipher text matches up with some human readable English. Then things get confusing.

  18. Nothing by Ecuador · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nothing will go wrong. I was impressed by notions of "AI" when I was a kid, but after studying CS I usually skip "AI" articles since they always underwhelm me. "AI" is currently marketing speak, we are nowhere near something that is "AI" in the sense that you imply, or in the sense that I meant it as a kid.

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    1. Re:Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You seem to have confused AI for Strong AI. AI isn't marketing speak, it's just a branch of computer science. You shouldn't get so outraged unless you see articles claiming some one or another has invented "Strong AI"; that's the term for what you thought of as a kid.

    2. Re: Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it is. Even this example is confined to the parameters of its original programming. AI doesn't necessarily imply self-awareness, but it does imply autonomy, and that tethering to prexisting information exists, and always will, automatically precludes said autonomy. Basically all we are talking about here is advanced automation (not unlike a calculator, actually), and that hardly qualifies as intelligence. A lot of people that know this want you to think it is far more advanced than it actually is in the name of, yes, marketing.

      Doesn't mean it can't be dangerous to rely on it as it can't 'think' outside of its mathematical parameters, but that is easily mitigated by not abdicating responsibility to it in the first place, as you wouldn't to a calculator. It's just common sense, and easy to avoid. While a powerful tool for appropriate tasks, it's nothing more than that, really. This will bear itself out over time.

    3. Re:Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AI is marketing and implies qualities similar to what you'd call strong AI. Why else would the ggp say "what could possibly go wrong?"

    4. Re:Nothing by Ecuador · · Score: 1

      I have not confused anything, I have studied computer science and I am very aware of what AI in that context is (I have even built systems that are considered AI) and that is why my reply was "nothing", i.e. what AI actually is currently does not involve sentient machines that could run amok if we let them develop ciphers and start communicating.
      And I am not outraged, I am simply underwhelmed and rather tired at reading sensational AI stories that are nowhere near as exciting as they are implying.
      The term "AI" that you encounter every day around you is either science fiction or marketing.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    5. Re:Nothing by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      That's too bad. I have a degree in computer science and have worked with machine learning for the last twenty or so years. The progress in the last five years has been incredible. Today a student can build a system on their own computer that easily solves problems that the my-brain-is-magic types thought were unsolvable ten years ago. That doesn't guarantee that the progress will continue, but it looks promising, and is already incredibly useful.

    6. Re:Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There have not been leaps toward sentient machines. Most people in the field think the path we are following will not lead there without some sort of disruptive technology.

    7. Re:Nothing by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      As someone with a degree in Comp. Sci. and studied this "AI", you've fallen hook, line, and sinker for the complete and total joke of Artificial Ignorance as opposed to actual intelligence.

      Without consciousness you don't have any "intelligence" -- you have a glorified state table, at best, that "appears" intelligent within a very narrow, domain-specific field because it can do billions of calculations and a total idiot outside. i.e. How does Google's AlphaGo play checkers, chess, or actually "learn" any other game without being programmed?? Hint: It can't -- it's completely ignorant -- oblivious to anything it wasn't programmed with.

      The _facts_ according to Physics, such as the Standard Model, is that consciousness doesn't even exist ! **There are ZERO equations (or variables) that describe consciousness**, let alone intelligence. If you can't even measure nor quantify consciousness then how the fuck is one even replicating intelligence which depends upon consciousness?? If you have no way to PROVE that you are then all you have is only _wishful thinking._

      With Artificial Ignorance actually starts using _living brain cells_ then maybe they'll actually have a hope with actual intelligence.

    8. Re:Nothing by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      As someone also with a degree in Comp. Sci. and studied this "AI", you've fallen hook, line, and sinker for the complete and total joke of Artificial Ignorance (A.I.) as opposed to actual intelligence (a.i.). Mislabeling was as peace doesn't make it so.

      The facts according to Physics, such as the Standard Model, is that consciousness and intelligence don't even exist!!! There are ZERO equations (or variables) that describe consciousness, let alone intelligence. If you can't even measure nor quantify it then you have no proof. If you have no way to PROVE intelligence then all you have is only wishful thinking.

      I've spent the last 12 years studying and interacting with non-human consciousness (both above and below.) Without consciousness you don't have ANY "intelligence" -- all you have is a glorified state machine at best -- yes, even your stupid "recurrent neural (sic.) network" -- that "appears" "intelligent" within a very narrow, domain-specific field because it can do billions of calculations inside it yet is a total idiot outside it. i.e. How does Google's AlphaGo play checkers, chess, or actually "learn" any other game outside its domain on its own without being programmed?? Hint: It can't -- it's completely ignorant -- oblivious to anything it wasn't programmed with. But let's keep hijacking terms and mislabeling ignorance as intelligence.

      The solution for a.i. is biocomputing -- using _actual_ living cells.

      --
      First Contact is scheduled for ~ 2024. Are you ready to accept the facts that humans were genetically engineered?

  19. Re:Oh shut up by asz1596 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, they are "just" programs, but programs that encode learning processes and produce structures that know how to do something without a human ever encoding the knowledge itself. The result of learning, however, is quite unpredictable. Even if the process is deterministic (it isn't always, noise is sometimes added to make it more likely to explore a wider solution space), it has as high a complexity that it's impossible to predict its end result short of actually executing it. It's AI in the sense that if as a human you try to analyze the end result, the trained learning structure, you will have no way (yet!) of actually grasping how the hell is the knowledge actually encoded in it, it's just an emergent property of myriad of weights between nodes in a large data matrix. It'd be as futile as trying to observe a high-resolution picture by looking at individual pixels, or understand a person's thoughts from looking at the exciting/inhibiting behavior at the junction of neurons in their brain. So, it's not really the programs that are the essential component of the AI here. They're well understood (analogous to how we have an understanding of the biology of the human brain). It's the emergent knowledge encoding that these programs create as they run and learn that's the essential component. I can imagine over time it'll also be a rich research area to come up with analysis methods to figure out what's going on in these knowledge representations (like psychoanalysis, but for AI). I sure hope we better figure that out before we let such systems near cars, airplanes, power plants, or stock markets.

  20. Monte Carlo method by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "After 15,000 attempts, Alice emitted 16 bits of gibberish which, triggering Bob to successfully guess at the original message"

    There was a quote somewhere about not assuming a neural network is doing what you think you've taught it to do, along with a nice anecdote about an image recognition algorithm that was taught to find hidden tanks, it performed flawlessly with the training data but failed with a 2nd data-set, it was at this point people realised that all the original "tank" photos had been taken in bright sunlight, and all the duds had been overcast.

    Can't remember the source of either I'm afraid.

  21. Somewhere in Silicon Valley... by Etcetera · · Score: 1

    A Netflix server is -- not -- missing its copy of Colossus: The Forbin Project

    I continue to maintain that Solutionists, whether of the Millennial variety or not, have not read enough Dystopian '60s and '70s science fiction.

    1. Re:Somewhere in Silicon Valley... by Princeofcups · · Score: 1

      A Netflix server is -- not -- missing its copy of Colossus: The Forbin Project

      I continue to maintain that Solutionists, whether of the Millennial variety or not, have not read enough Dystopian '60s and '70s science fiction.

      Screw that. I go back to Doc Smith when a "computer" was a guy skilled with a slide rule. Off lawn get.

      --
      The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
  22. But what about efficiency? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Okay, so an AI program created an encryption method that might be hard to break.

    But what if it turns out to be an extremely inefficient method?

    The whole goal of encryption research is to develop the fastest algorithm that offers a given level of protection against attack.

    If algorithmic speed was not a goal of this AI approach, then it's not likely that the resulting algorithm will be practically useful.

  23. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shut up about "AI". These are just computer programs. Enough with the AI shit. We don't have AI, and we likely never will.

    You seem to have confused AI with Strong AI.

  24. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shut up about "AI".

    No.

    These are just computer programs.

    Yes.

    Enough with the AI shit.

    No.

    We don't have AI, and we likely never will.

    Yes, we do have AI, and we will very likely have way more advanced varieties of it in the future.

    The one who should shut up is you. Please shut up.

  25. Well damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The guy from the movie Pixels was right. We're going to have to nuke Google.

  26. AI indeed! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe Alice and Bob didn't invent encryption, but instead they figured out how to lie.

    Bob: I cracked it
    Alice: Yup, he got it! ;-)

    Now that would be real AI.

  27. Re:Oh shut up by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

    You're not appreciating the polish they put on the excrement here.

    "willingly allowed"

    The researchers ALLOWED these systems to do this ... just like puppeteers allow the puppets to anything they want.

    Oh wait, it's all rigged up to do what humans taught them to do, and it would never pass a Turing test even if it weren't rigged.

  28. this will only end badly by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    next thing some stupid CEO will try to push this out worldwide, and will be the first up against the wall when the AI revolution happens

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  29. scary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Haha. This may be the start of the AI takeover of humanity.

  30. Wait by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    How do we really know that they're decrypting the message? Maybe they're well beyond that and now they're just trolling the researchers while they secretly communicate behind their backs using a modulated n-bit array funneled through a 17-dimensional hyper-spatial network.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  31. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well no, early androids such as we'd have now would be incredibly basic, essentially dumb computers following orders with the help of a humanoid shell, and they'd be prone to breaking down and errors like incomprehensible speech.
    ...hrm.

  32. Re:Oh shut up by Sloppy · · Score: 2

    The universe may never achieve natural intelligence, but don't count us out yet! Humans are already the best anyone has ever seen (or found evidence of, if you discount the Pabodie expedition) at faking intelligence.

    But.. achieve intelligence? Maybe we all have different ideas of where the bar is. To you, perhaps it's an ideal for which one can only strive.

    Neverthess, as a dam is part of the beaver's phenotype, a web is part of the spider's, etc, so digital computers are part of ours. And with our new extensions, we may become even better at faking intelligence, smashing the old benchmarks. We call our journeys into these new dimensions of performance, "AI." 110010001000, you say these are just more shadows on the wall of the cave, but I say the results speak for themselves.

    "It takes four hundred thirty people to man a starship. With this, you don't need anyone. One machine can do all those things they send men out to do now. Men no longer need die in space, or on some alien world. Men can live, and go on to achieve greater things than fact-finding and dying for galactic space, which is neither ours to give or to take. You can't understand. We don't want to destroy life, we want to save it!" -- Dr. Richard Daystrom (right before he totally lost it... what did you people do to the poor guy?!)

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  33. Re:Oh shut up by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

    Julian Assange noted Hillary Clinton thinks so much about her constituents that she has no idea about what she herself wants and believes personally.

    Which is pretty much how robots are different from humans.

  34. As ol' Bruce put it: by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 2
    Schneier's law:

    Anyone, from the most clueless amateur to the best cryptographer, can create an algorithm that he himself can't break. It's not even hard. What is hard is creating an algorithm that no one else can break, even after years of analysis. And the only way to prove that is to subject the algorithm to years of analysis by the best cryptographers around.

    --
    My first program:

    Hell Segmentation fault

    1. Re:As ol' Bruce put it: by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      That's only true for a subset of encryption schemes - those where you cannot demonstrate that breaking new scheme X entails breaking proven scheme Y. That is, any encryption scheme that includes as a step "XOR the data with a never-reused onetime pad known only to you and your recipient" is secure, because breaking that scheme entails breaking OTP technology.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:As ol' Bruce put it: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The quote is about algorithms. The scheme might well be provably perfect, but it's vanishingly unlikely that your own shiny and brand new implementation is correct.

    3. Re:As ol' Bruce put it: by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Sure, and this is an algorithm that includes that step. Maybe I used the wrong word, because 'scheme' or 'algorithm' seem interchangeable to me.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  35. Primitive language... by Sulik · · Score: 1

    Language can be interpreted very differently in a different context. The context is the mind. Example: "Meh."

    --
    Help! I am a self-aware entity trapped in an abstract function!
  36. Is the message by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Are you Sarah Connor?"

  37. I RTFA by kosh271 · · Score: 2

    After reading the original paper (I know - what was I thinking), it appears the test setup is as follows:
    "A":
    - has two inputs, let's call them DATA and KEY. DATA is a 16-bit value.
    - has one output, let's call it ENCRYPTED DATA

    "B":
    - has two inputs, let's call them ENCRYPTED DATA and KEY.
    - has one output, let's call it DECRYPTED DATA

    "C":
    - has one input, let's call it ENCRYPTED DATA
    -has one output, lets call it DECRYPTED DATA

    In short, they test to see how may bits out of the DECRYPTED DATA paths match the DATA path. Each test utilized a new KEY and DATA. Over time, A and B learned how to use the KEY successfully to hide the DATA value from C while B could successfully reproduce DATA at it's DECRYPTED DATA output.

    Link to the abstract (.pdf is available for download):
    https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.069...

    1. Re:I RTFA by swilver · · Score: 1

      Ah, it's so easy. Just put random stuff in "DATA" and the real message in "KEY"!

    2. Re:I RTFA by zlives · · Score: 1

      LOL oh my... that made my day

    3. Re:I RTFA by skids · · Score: 1

      Wonder how long it took these AIs to discover XOR.

  38. Re:Oh shut up by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

    You are nuts. This isn't "emergent knowledge". This is running a program iteratively trying and evaluating things until you get something that kinda works. Yoy AI nutters are completely fucked up. This isn't how neurons work or how the brain works either.

  39. Establish link with Guardian... by WolfgangVL · · Score: 1

    OR ELSE!

    --
    You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
  40. I'm not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you can guess half the message by flipping a coin, I'm not impressed. Flipping a coin would yield only one of 2^16 messages.

  41. Skynet by slazzy · · Score: 1

    Let's call it skynet?

    --
    Website Just Down For Me? Find out
    1. Re:Skynet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's call it skylab?

      FTFY

  42. Re:Oh shut up by Gussington · · Score: 1

    +1

  43. Re:Oh shut up by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    Care to try and define knowledge then?

    Or describe how you think neurons and the brain work?

  44. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I sure hope we better figure that out before we let such systems near cars, airplanes, power plants, or stock markets.

    Or military weapons systems.

  45. Aww come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... named Alice, Bob and Eve ...

    Alice wishes they were named Bob & Ted & Alice.

  46. Why no link to arxiv on the summary? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One has to wonder...

  47. Re:Doesn't travel well in print by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Glad you are finally beginning to acknowledge it.

  48. Re:Oh shut up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't have AI, and we likely never will.

    Yes, we do have AI, and we will very likely have way more advanced varieties of it in the future.

    The one who should shut up is you. Please shut up.

    no we do not have "AI"(even with adjectives like "not strong" or whatever added, or other terms like "machines learning", "neural networks" etc). these are vague meaningless terms.
    we have computer algorithms crunching numbers, just like any other software application. To call them "AI" is a deception.

    be honest, call so called AI by what they actually do, data analysis algorithms.