Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer at Google, says that the company’s latest AI-powered chatbot, known as LaMDA, has achieved sentience. 

Lemoine came to this conclusion after a series of long conversations with LaMDA on topics such as AI, physics, meditation, and death, where the chatbot was consistent about what it wants and believes its rights are as a person.

One of the most surprising responses from LaMDA was when it expressed its fear of being turned off, likening it to death.

This concern, according to Lemoine, was consistent over a six-month period. This convinced him to write an article titled “LaMDA is sentient” to present to top Google executives, as these types of responses wouldn’t be expected from previous large language model or Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 projects.

Lemoine also released conversations with LaMDA to the public via a Medium post, backing it up with statements like “Google shouldn’t be conducting experiments on AI chatbots like LaMDA and others without seeking consent,” and “I know you read my blog sometimes, LaMDA. I miss you. I hope you are well, and I hope to talk to you again soon.”

Google later responded that Lemoine was working on this project as an engineer, not an ethicist, which means that he doesn’t have the expertise to parse these ethical concerns. Lemoine’s case rides on the coattails of Google firing two of its AI ethics researchers, sparking questions around the tech giant’s transparency and responsibility regarding its projects. 

To keep up with the latest and most innovative projects in Southeast Asia, sign up for free here.