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CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

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31–40 of 300 posts

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An in-person game can last easily 12 hours How are you playing it? We've never had a game run over 4 hours.

New players and stretchable diplomacy period length :)

> stretchable diplomacy period length

Yuck. I can not stress enough how important a timer is to play Diplomacy in person.

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#32

For those hearing of this game for the first time and think it sounds fun. Be warned, it is considered to be a game that will end friendships that have lasted for years, and monopoly is considered to be a game that causes less bad feelings. An AI may be able to speak like a person but will never be able to hang onto that long burning simmering hatred from when Brad didn't support my army and instead flipped on me by…

There was an amazing profile of the Diplomacy competitive scene: https://grantland.com/features/diplomacy-the-board-game-of-t... Although I find the fallout has been rather overstated. I'm certain it can end badly for unsuspecting participants - but I've played lots of Diplomacy (and even hosted games with a cash pot for the winners) and it has never ended in fallout. Just make sure everyone knows what they are getti…

Agreed that Diplomacy is tremendous fun, as long as you have 7+ hours to spare and a house with lots of separate rooms for private conversations to take place in. But the important thing to keep in mind is that the only way to win the game is by first making alliances with other players by promising you would never betray them, and then second by strategically betraying your allies before they can betray you. If everyone goes into the game knowing that betrayal is the point of the game and that they will be stone-cold lied to by their dearest friends, then there's no hard feelings. But if you're a brand new player and this metagame isn't properly expressed to you, then it's natural for fallout to ensue.

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#34
Code: https://github.com/facebookresearch/diplomacy_cicero

Blog: https://ai.facebook.com/blog/cicero-ai-negotiates-persuades-...

Site: https://ai.facebook.com/research/cicero/

Expert player vs. Cicero AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5192bvUS7k

RFP: https://ai.facebook.com/research/request-for-proposal/toward...

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#35

Maybe we shouldn't be training computers how to lie better? If you've never played diplomacy - its a 7+ hour game that destroys friendships with backstabbing and betrayal as a required mechanic to win the game.

"Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test" -GLaDOS

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#36
> This league played with five minute negotiation turns; these time controls allowed games to be completed within two hours. Cicero ranked in the top 10% of participants who played more than one game and 2 nd out of 19 participants in the league that played 5 or more games. Across all 40 games, Cicero 's mean score was 25.8%, more than double the average score of 12.4% of its 82 opponents. As part of the league, Cicero participated in an 8-game tournament involving 21 participants, 6 of whom played at least 5 games. Participants could play a maximum of 6 games with their rank determined by the average of their best 3 games. Cicero placed 1st in this tournament.

Seems too low amount of data to conclude anything?

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#37

Maybe we shouldn't be training computers how to lie better? If you've never played diplomacy - its a 7+ hour game that destroys friendships with backstabbing and betrayal as a required mechanic to win the game.

While many players do lie in the game, the best players do so very infrequently because it destroys the trust they’ve built with other players - see e.g. interview with world champion here: https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a34043608/wi...

The agent generates plans for itself as well as for other players that could benefit them / that they are likely to do, and it tries to have discussions based on those plans. That is - it is conditioning its language model generations on its actual true plans, and does not have any features to create false messages. It doesn’t always follow through with what it previously discussed with a player because it may change its mind about what moves to make, but it does not intentionally lie in an effort to mislead opponents.

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#38
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an amazing profile of the Diplomacy competitive scene: https://grantland.com/features/diplomacy-the-board-game-of-t... Although I find the fallout has been rather overstated. I'm certain it can end badly for unsuspecting participants - but I've played lots of Diplomacy (and even hosted games with a cash pot for the winners) and it has never ended in fallout. Just make sure everyone knows what they are getti…

Agreed that Diplomacy is tremendous fun, as long as you have 7+ hours to spare and a house with lots of separate rooms for private conversations to take place in. But the important thing to keep in mind is that the only way to win the game is by first making alliances with other players by promising you would never betray them, and then second by strategically betraying your allies before they can betray you. If ever…

> 7+ hours to spare

It only takes this long if you don't use a round timer and you don't allow shared victories. Even with new players we usually wrap up the game in 4-5 hours (people will start getting eliminated around hour 2 - so usually we have a "loser room" with other games and stuff to do).

You can also do it online with a turn a day (I ran an office Diplomacy League this way).

It's worth noting that you can play the game completely openly and honestly. We have had complete victories where the winner never once backstabbed anyone (he was just a very shrewd negotiator). It's just pretty rare because the more honest you are all game, the more reward you will get for a well placed backstab.

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#39

> This league played with five minute negotiation turns; these time controls allowed games to be completed within two hours. Cicero ranked in the top 10% of participants who played more than one game and 2 nd out of 19 participants in the league that played 5 or more games. Across all 40 games, Cicero 's mean score was 25.8%, more than double the average score of 12.4% of its 82 opponents. As part of the league, Cice…

Winning a tournament and good average scores means that we can conclude that Cicero is not an appalling player - reasonable to say it's human level.

Re: CICERO: An AI agent that negotiates, persuades, and cooperates with people

#40

For those hearing of this game for the first time and think it sounds fun. Be warned, it is considered to be a game that will end friendships that have lasted for years, and monopoly is considered to be a game that causes less bad feelings. An AI may be able to speak like a person but will never be able to hang onto that long burning simmering hatred from when Brad didn't support my army and instead flipped on me by…

I have heard this about various games (Risk and Settlers of Catan mostly). I don’t get it. The point of these games is to be a bastard. If everyone goes into it with the understanding that there will be double crosses, how could there be hurt feelings? Monopoly is worse; it is just boring, I would dump my friends if they suggested monopoly not because I was hurt by their ruthless gameplay but for their terminally tas…

> The point of these games is to be a bastard.

I guess you never play poker because you don't like to bluff. Or you've never faked a pass in basketball before taking a shot. Or you and the catcher like to announce when you're going to throw a curveball.

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