AI learns languages in a similar way to humans


Photographer: Illustration: Chalmers University of Technology | Emil Carlsson | Mia Halleröd Palmgren

In a study, researchers tested having AI agents play a communication game with each other to mimic how humans develop language. They had an AI agent communicate a colour via a symbol, and the receiving AI agent would try to recover what colour the symbol corresponded to. Both agents received a common reward if the colour was successfully recovered. The researchers also let the AI models learn from each other over generations. The overall result was a system for naming colours that were similar to human colour language, even though the AI agents had never come into contact with such.

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