Google has seen a huge turmoil in the company after a senior software engineer was suspended on June 13 for sharing transcripts of a chat with a “sentient” artificial intelligence (AI). Blake Lemoine, the 41-year-old engineer, was placed on paid leave after violating Google's confidentiality policy. He had published transcripts of chats between him and the company's LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) chatbot development system. Lemoine defined the system he's been working on since last fall as “sentient” with the ability to perceive, express thoughts and feelings comparable to a human child. [1]

Figure 1. Google Engineer Thinks an AI Has Become Sentient

Figure 1 shows LaMDA or Language Models for Dialog Applications is a machine-learning language model created by Google as a chatbot that is supposed to mimic humans in conversation. Like BERT, GPT-3 and other language models, LaMDA is built on Transformer, a neural network architecture that Google invented and open-sourced in 2017. [2]

LaMDA is a system that develops chatbots – AI robots designed to chat with humans – by scraping reams of text from the internet and then using algorithms to answer questions in as fluid and natural a manner as possible. [4]

Google says Lemoine's findings do not prove sentience. "Our team — including ethicists and technologists — has reviewed Blake's concerns per our AI Principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims," said Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel. "He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it)."

According to The Washington Post, Google made the decision to place Lemoine on "paid administrative leave" on Monday after it was determined that he had breached the company's confidentiality policy by publishing the conversations with LaMDA online. The company emphasized in a statement that Lemoine had been employed as a software engineer, not an ethicist. [3]

References:

1. https://gadgets360.com/science/news/google-lamda-ai-system-chatbox-sentient-engineer-leave-3065294
2. https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/lamda-the-program-that-a-google-engineer-thinks-has-become-sentient-7967050/
3. https://www.ign.com/articles/google-engineer-ai-sentient-claims-google-disagrees
4. https://newslogic.in/science/google-disagrees-with-engineer-who-claimed-lamda-ai-chatbot-had-become-sentient-sent-him-on-leave/

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022), Google Engineer Thinks an AI Has Become Sentient, Anatechmaz, p.p 97