Google Says It Has Fired Engineer Who Claimed Its AI Chatbot Is Sentient

Alphabet’s Google stated on Friday it has dismissed a senior software program engineer who claimed the corporate’s synthetic intelligence (AI) chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware particular person.

Google, which positioned software program engineer Blake Lemoine on go away final month, stated he had violated firm insurance policies and that it discovered his claims on LaMDA to be “wholly unfounded.”

“It is regrettable that regardless of prolonged engagement on this matter, Blake nonetheless selected to persistently violate clear employment and information safety insurance policies that embrace the necessity to safeguard product data,” a Google spokesperson stated in an e-mail to Reuters.

Final 12 months, Google stated that LaMDA — Language Mannequin for Dialogue Purposes — was constructed on the corporate’s analysis displaying Transformer-based language fashions skilled on dialogue might be taught to speak about primarily something.

Google and lots of main scientists had been fast to dismiss Lemoine’s views as misguided, saying LaMDA is solely a fancy algorithm designed to generate convincing human language.

Lemoine’s dismissal was first reported by Large Expertise, a tech and society publication.

© Thomson Reuters 2022