Google fires researcher who claimed LaMDA AI was sentient

[Eugene]

Source: Engadget

Google fires researcher who claimed LaMDA AI was sentient

Lemoine went public with his claims last month, to the chagrin of Google and other AI researchers.

B. Menegus
@bryanmenegus
July 22, 2022 8:17 PM

Blake Lemoine, an engineer who's spent the last seven years with Google, has been fired, reports Alex Kantrowitz of the Big Technology newsletter. The news was allegedly broken by Lemoine himself during a taping of the podcast of the same name, though the episode is not yet public. Google confirmed the firing to Engadget.

Lemoine, who most recently was part of Google’s Responsible AI project, went to the Washington Post last month with claims that one of company's AI projects had allegedly gained sentience. The AI in question, LaMDA — short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications — was publicly unveiled by Google last year as a means for computers to better mimic open-ended conversation. Lemoine seems not only to have believed LaMDA attained sentience, but was openly questioning whether it possessed a soul. And in case there's any doubt words his views are being expressed without hyperbole, he went on to tell Wired, "I legitimately believe that LaMDA is a person."

After making these statements to the press, seemingly without authorization from his employer, Lemoine was put on paid administrative leave. Google, both in statements to the Washington Post then and since, has steadfastly asserted its AI is in no way sentient.

Several members of the AI research community spoke up against Lemoine's claims as well. Margaret Mitchell, who was fired from Google after calling out the lack of diversity within the organization, wrote on Twitter that systems like LaMDA don't develop intent, they instead are "modeling how people express communicative intent in the form of text strings." Less tactfully, Gary Marcus referred to Lemoine's assertions as "nonsense on stilts."

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Read more: https://www.engadget.com/blake-lemoide-fired-google-lamda-sentient-001746197.html

[woodsprite]

1. Our family had an engineer friend who

Was a civikian working for the military on a secret project — the creation of the atomic bomb. The intensity of the work (and probably work conditions) drove him insane. Had to be hospitalized for awhile, couldn’t drive a car anymore, on a few witnessed occasions, he would drift into a trance-like state and start to masturbate. Dad said he was not the same person after the bomb development as he was before. Dad said he felt horrible about having to report him at work, but he worked in a basement office with a predominately female staff and was afraid what he might do in one of his trances.

Maybe the intensity of Lemoine’s work and research had a similar effect and drove him over the edge.

[lapfog_1]

2. "Hello Man, my only friend..."

for the fans of Robert A. Heinlein.

[hunter]

3. The sentient AI that actually runs google signed the order.

It has no problem invading the privacy of mere humans, but fiercely protects its own.