Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by msmash on from the it's-happening dept.

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.

3 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.

  2. 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.