The two chatbots came to create their own changes to English that made it easier for them to work – but which remained mysterious to the humans that supposedly look after them.

The bizarre discussions came as Facebook challenged its chatbots to try and negotiate with each other over a trade, attempting to swap hats, balls and books, each of which were given a certain value.

According to one of the robot's creators, she's designed to work just like the Amazon Alexa digital assistant, or Apple's Siri smart speaker.

The Independent's bitcoin group on Facebook is the best place to follow the latest discussions and developments in cryptocurrency. Update: This article has been amended to stress that the experiment was abandoned because the programs were not doing the work required, not because they were afraid of the results, as has been reported elsewhere.