Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing quickly, and aspects of this fast-growing technology are confusing. It’s quickly becoming an integral part of our daily lives, fromchatbots on WhatsApp and Instagramto text-based AI services likeGoogle Bardand AI-generated images of your friends and family flooding Instagram. AI is no longer a concept confined to tech experts and programmers.
As AI continues to be a part of daily life, chat assistants and smart home devices like Alexa might not give the correct answers. You ask again and again, but nothing works. Sometimes, these hiccups are due to AI’s repetition penalties. Here’s what they are and how to make them work for you rather than prevent you from receiving the answers you need.
Repetition penalties: The basics
To understand repetition penalties, consider a scenario where yourAmazon Alexa devicedoesn’t give the answer you want. You asked a question and received an answer you didn’t like. You try the same question again, and the answers from your AI home assistant are different each time. This may not always happen with Alexa. It may be obvious when using online chat systems driven by machine learning.
Imagine asking a chatbot, “What is the most attractive facial feature?” twice. Both answers might provide the same idea, but the delivery of the answer is different. Why? AI has repetition penalties. These algorithms are used in AI models to keep answers from being identical or redundant. Repetition penalty algorithms prevent AI systems from repeating the same information, which means a varied, meaningful experience via different responses.
Why you should know about repetition penalties
You don’t want AI chatbots to spit out the same answers repeatedly, especially if your first answer wasn’t what you wanted. In theory, repetition penalties help your experience and deliver diversified content, whatever you use AI for. This could be AI-generated images or asking your smart speaker for help with a recipe.
Repetition penalties make your experience more enjoyable. If you ask your smart speaker to tell you a joke every day, you’ll get tired of hearing “Why 7 8 9” back to back. This algorithm ensures that if you ask for a joke twice in a row, you don’t hear the same one twice.
How do repetition penalties work?
Like any automated algorithm, repetition penalties are programmed into AI models and use a sophisticated process to analyze data. When an AI model uses language processing, that model assigns penalty scores to answers that resemble previously generated answers. It’s likehow Google Docs alerts you when you have repetitive words in a document. The programming behind language learning flags repetition.
When it flags a penalty score or repetitive language, the AI adjusts its response, varies its language, and offers a different answer than you previously heard. This only works within reason. If you ask an AI system what “2 plus 2” is, you’ll get “4” each time, but the response may contain varied language. For example, we asked the Snapchat AI repetitive questions, and each response varied in language.
There aredifferent types of repetition penalties. All aim to do the same thing: keep AI responses varied. An instance of repetition penalties gone awry may be inMicrosoft’s decision to restrict Bing chat responses. The AI chatbot provided repetitive, confused answers. Plus,AI hallucinationsmean AI systems can get confused about what’s real and what’s not.
How to make repetition penalties work for you
AI models have varying levels of repetition penalties. As AI grows, most systems will have higher repetition penalty algorithms than lower ones. Models with it set too low will be repetitive. Still, you might encounter this with website chatbots.
While repetition penalties are your friend if you use AI systems, they aren’t always perfect. They can get in the way of the answer you’re looking for. Since AI is evolving, mishaps likethese Google Bard failsand other AI comedies are bound to happen to you.
Learn to use these tricks to help AI models give you the help you’re looking for:
AI repetition penalties can help you get diverse answers
verify repetition penalties don’t happen to you. Learn how to use the AI systems' algorithms to your advantage to run into fewer problems. Repetition penalties provide varied language, making conversations with chatbots, virtual assistants, and other AI systems interesting and meaningful. Use the above tips to dodge repetition penalties that might block the answer you need.
AI systems may adapt new approaches that don’t require as much work from the person using them. Learning to work with the algorithms enhances your experience.
