Scientists create AI models that can talk to each other and pass on skills with limited human input

The next evolution in artificial intelligence (AI) could lie in agents that can communicate directly and teach each other to perform tasks, research shows.

Scientists have modeled an AI network capable of learning and carrying out tasks solely on the basis of written instructions. This AI then described what it learned to a “sister” AI, which performed the same task despite having no prior training or experience in doing it. 

The first AI communicated to its sister using natural language processing (NLP), the scientists said in their paper published March 18 in the journal Nature. 

NLP is a subfield of AI that seeks to recreate human language in computers — so machines can understand and reproduce written text or speech naturally. These are built on neural networks, which are collections of machine learning algorithms modeled to replicate the arrangement of neurons in the brain.

‘‘Once these tasks had been learned, the network was able to describe them to a second network — a copy of the first — so that it could reproduce them. To our knowledge, this is the first time that two AIs have been able to talk to each other in a purely linguistic way,’’ said lead author of the paper Alexandre Pouget, leader of the Geneva University Neurocenter, in a statement.

The scientists achieved this transfer of knowledge by starting with an NLP model called "S-Bert," which was pre-trained to understand human language. They connected S-Bert to a smaller neural network centered around interpreting sensory inputs and simulating motor actions in response. 

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