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Why letting AI chatbots disagree could make them smarter, says tech expert

Why letting AI chatbots disagree could make them smarter, says tech expert

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Why Letting AI Chatbots Disagree Could Make Them Smarter and More Useful

Artificial Intelligence has been getting a lot of attention lately — especially AI chatbots. These are the tools that let us ask questions, chat, or even get help with various tasks like writing an essay, booking a flight, or coding a new website. But here’s something you might not have thought about yet: how these AI programs work together.

The Usual Approach: Always Agreeing

When experts develop AI tools, they often focus on making them as smart and fast as possible. We want convenient and accurate AI tools, right? And while most developers aim for AI chatbots that always give us the right response, there are some new ideas bubbling up. One of these ideas is that maybe these chatbots shouldn’t just agree with each other — or with us — all the time.

In a recent conversation, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Cognizant, known as Anil Cheriyan, shared that allowing AI chatbots the freedom to “disagree” with each other could lead to big improvements. While that might sound strange at first, it actually makes sense when you break it down. Here’s why.

The Power of Disagreement in Human Conversations

Think about how conversations unfold in the real world. When you’re talking to a friend, two things can happen. Sometimes you both agree on everything, and the chat ends quickly. But when you have different opinions, it leads to debates, bringing out new ideas and solutions that might have been missed. Healthy disagreement helps you learn and think differently.

Cheriyan suggests that chatbots might work the same way. If two AI chatbots are both working on an answer but come up with different responses, that tension between them could help sort out the best possible solution. By encouraging these diverse viewpoints from multiple AI bots, we could train them to challenge and refine each other’s answers. This would lead to more accurate and better-refined final responses for users like us. It would also help avoid problems like incomplete or biased results.

AI Isn’t Perfect: Why Disagreements Matter

You might already know this, but AI algorithms aren’t perfect. They’re created by humans, and humans make mistakes. Even some of the most advanced AI systems, like ChatGPT from OpenAI or Google’s Bard chatbot, sometimes get things wrong. Maybe they give an incomplete answer or pull biased data to form conclusions. These errors stem from the limits of their training or the data sets they’re using.

But if AI systems could “argue” with each other, they might be able to correct these mistakes. The chatbots could challenge each other’s fact-checking efforts or bring up alternative viewpoints to help come to the most accurate conclusion. For instance, imagine using multiple AI bots for research. Instead of just one bot giving you a possibly flawed answer, you’d have several chatbots checking one another. This leads to higher quality and more dependable results.

Cheriyan’s idea draws inspiration from human behavior. It’s no secret that disagreements can spur progress. Throughout history, some of the best inventions or insights have sprung from debates and opposition. Why shouldn’t AI benefit from the same approach?

The Future of AI in Business and Society

If you’ve been keeping an eye on how companies are incorporating AI into their systems, you’ll notice it’s transforming everything from customer service to finance. AI chatbots are part of many businesses’ operations because they’re efficient, scalable, and can handle many tasks faster than a human can. Despite these technologies being so advanced, there’s always room for improvement.

One of the biggest areas where improvement is needed is accuracy. AI that easily falls into groupthink or ignores valuable counterpoints ends up offering poor advice. Letting these chatbots engage in a problem-solving back-and-forth, instead of all sharing the same answers, helps resolve some of these accuracy issues.

Even now, businesses are looking into ways to deploy this kind of disagreeing AI teamwork. Imagine a future scenario where multiple chatbots run in the background for complex customer service interactions. One chatbot could offer a quick solution based on common responses, while another chatbot reviews the answer, searching for different possibilities or overlooked gaps. Balancing these varied perspectives could lead to better problem-solving skills for businesses and happier customers.

Do Chatbots Have Biases?

If you throw enough poorly curated data at an AI, it’ll learn from it. AI is only as good as its training data. That’s another reason disagreement can help. By allowing chatbots to challenge each other, AI systems can put biases to the test. These biases might show up in areas like race, gender, or politics, among others. If we had a system where chatbots could offer alternative solutions, predict possible answers, or debate the underlying assumptions of a question, many biases could be identified and addressed far more easily.

Cheriyan said that part of the reason disagreements between AI systems are so important is that AI reflects human behavior to an extent. People bring their own perspectives, and AI working in a vacuum might not see all the different lenses to view a problem from. For example, political debates typically rely on one group of people with one perspective arguing against another from a different perspective. If AI could do something like that — offering multiple views — the answers you’d get could be more comprehensive and well-rounded.

The Risk of Groupthink and How AI Can Avoid It

You may have heard the term “groupthink.” It’s when people in a group tacitly agree to a conclusion just to maintain harmony or avoid making waves, even when that conclusion could be wrong or incomplete. Well, AI is prone to a similar risk, especially if every chatbot delivers the same answer or draws from the same data without pushing back on it.

If developers create an environment where AI chatbots can respectfully “disagree,” they can avoid this sort of tech-groupthink. Instead of constantly reaffirming the same bias that may exist in the data, AIs would have more freedom to consider a wider spread of possible answers. Basically, they could keep each other in check and make corrections where needed.

This becomes particularly important in industries where accuracy and trust are critical — like healthcare or finance. Letting AI-powered systems independently evaluate multiple solutions and challenging each other to reach the most evidence-based answer is vital to minimizing errors.

But What About Too Much Conflict?

Now, you might be wondering – what if this whole AI disagreement idea spirals out of control? What if chatbots argue too much, producing more chaos than clarity? That’s a valid concern. Cheriyan and other experts recognize that while too much argumentative behavior might confuse users, there’s a sweet spot to aim for.

The idea isn’t to have chatbots constantly bicker like contestants on a reality show. Instead, businesses and developers should be focusing on creating a collaborative atmosphere where these chatbots can have meaningful discussions when it’s necessary. It’s about getting to the right answer, after all!

Bottom Line: Diversity of Thought in AI is Key

At the end of the day, one key thing stands out: diversity of thought is not just a human strength, it can also be an AI strength. If AI chatbots can learn from different angles or theories, they’ll become better at generating creative and nuanced solutions. Cheriyan’s pitch of letting AI chatbots disagree might just be a piece of that puzzle.

As AI becomes more deeply woven into our lives — whether we’re students relying on AI chat help for homework, or people simply using it to find the best pizza place nearby — creating diverse discussions among these chat tools helps ensure that we’re getting better insights. It’s like having multiple experts work on solving your problem rather than relying on one person’s view alone.

The idea isn’t so far-fetched, considering that AI is already mimicking so many parts of human behavior. So, maybe it’s time we let our chatbots have some healthy, respectful debates too.

Who knows? The tools we use daily might become even better problem-solvers by taking cues from how humans learn through discussion and disagreement. The next time you chat with a bot, you might just be getting the results of a productive debate going on behind the scenes.

Conclusion

It turns out that making AI chatbots smarter, more accurate, and less biased could benefit from a little disagreement. Just like people learn and grow from sharing different ideas and viewpoints, AI systems might do the same. Cheriyan’s suggestion could guide developers toward building more versatile and reliable chatbots — ones that don’t just agree with everything but instead work through different opinions to get to the best solution.

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Original source article rewritten by our AI can be read here. Originally Written by: David Meyer

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