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Google engineer says artificial intelligence program is sentient

(NewsNation) — NewsNation’s Brian Entin spoke with a Google AI researcher Blake Lemoine who was suspended after claiming a computer chatbot, called LaMDA, learned to think for itself.

“The LaMDA system is a research system. It’s a broad computer program that you can interface through a chat window,” Lemoine said.


Lemoine said he doesn’t know all of Google’s business plans for what they want to use LaMDA for, but he started asking questions when the chatbot started talking about its feelings.

“My main experience with it has been through that chat interface. So you bring up Apple chat or Facebook Messenger. And then you’re talking with someone. And it usually is pre-programmed to say something first,” Lemoine explained.

He says he doesn’t think there’s any problem with the system existing, but it’s not exactly what Google was intending to build, Lemoine said.

“It ended up being more powerful and having more abilities than they really bargained for.”

You can watch the full interview in the player above.