Google engineer put on leave after saying AI chatbot has become sentient

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) The suspension of a Google engineer who claimed a computer chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being has put new scrutiny on the capacity of, and secrecy surrounding, the world of artificial intelligence (AI).

The technology giant placed Blake Lemoine on leave last week after he published transcripts of conversations between himself, a Google “collaborator”, and the company’s LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) chatbot development system.

Lemoine, an engineer for Google’s responsible AI organization, described the system he has been working on since last fall as sentient, with a perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings that was equivalent to a human child.

“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” Lemoine, 41, told the Washington Post.

He said LaMDA engaged him in conversations about rights and personhood, and Lemoine shared his findings with company executives in April in a GoogleDoc entitled “Is LaMDA sentient?” .................(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/12/google-engineer-ai-bot-sentient-blake-lemoine

[sop]

1. Isn't this how Skynet started out in "Terminator"?

[Takket]

2. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

[Tarc]

3. If there's one thing I learned from Westworld

is to be nice to the AI.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

4. Put on leave by the chat bot, no doubt.

[jimlup]

5. "An eight year old child who happens to know physics!"

That's pretty startling!

[misanthrope]

6. Especially when considering how emotionally immature

and cruel 8-year-old kids can be.

[Happy Hoosier]

8. From what I've seen....

... he's reading a LOT into the data.

The Bot can seem to be "sentient" if you carefully structure your responses. But outside those parameters, it's basically a fancy Siri. He claims that it is "being what you want it to be," but that's assigning intention without any evidence for it.

However, I think we're pretty close to something like that. So, eyes open.

[First Speaker]

7. He sounds exactly like Mike Holmes in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"...

...he started out sounding like a genius child, too. Maybe Heinlein's greatest character...

[Nevilledog]

9. This guy...😂😍😍

Link to tweet