  By capturing statistical patterns in large corpora, machine learning has
enabled significant advances in natural language processing, including in
machine translation, question answering, and sentiment analysis. However, for
agents to intelligently interact with humans, simply capturing the statistical
patterns is insufficient. In this paper we investigate if, and how, grounded
compositional language can emerge as a means to achieve goals in multi-agent
populations. Towards this end, we propose a multi-agent learning environment
and learning methods that bring about emergence of a basic compositional
language. This language is represented as streams of abstract discrete symbols
uttered by agents over time, but nonetheless has a coherent structure that
possesses a defined vocabulary and syntax. We also observe emergence of
non-verbal communication such as pointing and guiding when language
communication is unavailable.
