Should we fear chatbots? ⏲️ 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English

from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil.

And I'm Rob.

Now, I'm sure most of us have interacted with a chatbot.

These are bits of computer technology that respond to text with text

or respond to your voice.

You ask it a question and usually it comes up

with an answer.

Yes, it's almost like talking to another human.

But of course, it's not.

It's just a clever piece of technology.

It's becoming more sophisticated, more advanced and complex,

but could they replace real human interaction altogether?

We'll discuss that more in a moment and find out if chatbots

really think for themselves. But first,

I have a question for you, Rob. The first computer program that allowed

some kind of plausible conversation between humans and machines

was invented in 1966.

But what was it called?

Was it a) Alexa.

b) Eliza, or c) Parry? Well, it's not Alexa,

that's too new, so I'll guess

c) Parry.

I'll reveal the answer at the end of the programme.

Now, the old chatbots of the 1960s and 70s were quite basic.

But more recently, the technology is able to predict the next word that is

likely to be used in a sentence and it learns words and sentence structures.

It's clever stuff.

I've experienced using them when talking to my bank

or when I have problems trying to book a ticket on a website.

I no longer phone a human,

I speak to a virtual assistant instead.

Probably the most well known chatbot at the moment

is ChatGTP.

It is. The claim is that it's able to answer

anything you ask it.

This includes writing

students' essays.

Now, this is something that was discussed on the BBC

Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth.

Emily M Bender,

Professor of Computational Linguistics at the University

of Washington, explained why it's dangerous to always trust

what a chatbot is telling us.

We tend to react to grammatical, fluent, coherent seeming text

as authoritative and reliable and valuable and

we need to be on guard against that because what is coming out of ChatGTP

is none of that.

So, Professor Bender says that well written text, that is coherent -

that means it's clear, carefully considered and sensible -

makes us think what we are reading is reliable and authoritative.

So it's respected, accurate and important sounding.

Yes, chatbots might appear to write in this way. But really,

they are just predicting one word after another based on what they have learnt.

We should therefore be on guard - be careful

and alert about the accuracy of what we are being told.

One concern is that chatbots - a form of artificial intelligence - work

a bit like a human brain in the way it can learn and process information.

They are able to learn from experience. Something called deep learning.

A cognitive psychologist and computer scientist called Geoffrey Hinton,

recently said he feared that chatbots could soon overtake the level

of information that a human brain holds. That is a bit scary isn't it?

But for now, chatbots can be useful for practical information,

but sometimes we start to believe they are human

and we interact with them in a human like way.

This can make us believe them even more.

Professor Emma Bender,

speaking on the BBC's Word of Mouth

programme, explains why we might feel like that.

I think what's going on there is, the kinds of answers

you get depend on the questions

you put in, because it's doing likely next word, likely next word.

And so, if as the human interacting with this machine

and you start asking questions about how do you feel, you know, chatbot?

And, what do you think of this?

What are your goals?

You can provoke it to say things that sound like what a sentient

entity would say. We are really primed to imagine a mind behind language

whenever we encounter language.

And so we really have to account for that when

we're making decisions about these.

So, although a chatbot might sound human,

we really just ask it

things to get a reaction. We provoke it.

And it answers only with words

it has learned to use before.

Not because it has come up with a clever answer,

but it does sound like a sentient entity. Sentient describes a living  

thing that experiences feelings. As Professor Bender says we imagine  

that when something speaks there is a mind behind it. But sorry Neil,

they are not your friend.

They're just machines.

Yes, it's strange then

that we sometimes give chatbots names. Alexa, Siri, and earlier

I asked you what the name was for their first ever chatbot?

And I guessed it was Parry. Was I right?

You guessed wrong, I'm afraid.

Parry was an early form of chatbot from 1972.

But the correct answer was Eliza.

It was considered to be the first chatterbot, as it was called then,

and was developed by Joseph Weizenbaum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Fascinating stuff.

OK, now let's recap some of the vocabulary

we highlighted in this programme, starting with sophisticated,

which can describe technology that is advanced and complex.

Something that is coherent, is clear carefully considered and sensible.

Authoritative means respected accurate and important sounding.

When you are on guard

you must be careful and alert about something.

It could be the accuracy of what you see or hear or just being aware

of the dangers around you. To provoke means to do something

that causes a reaction from someone.

Sentient describes something that experiences feelings.

So it's something that is living. Once again

our six minutes are up. Goodbye.

Bye bye for now.