Will talking to a chatbot ever be the same once you learn of the spooky experiences of Google software engineer Blake Lemoine?
Mr Lemoine has been suspended from Google's artificial intelligence development team, a unit of Alphabet, for sharing confidential information about a project with third parties.
He spoke out to raise concerns that Google's LaMDA — the Language Model for Dialogue Applications — which is a system for building chatbots, has come to life, or become sentient.
What exactly has Mr Lemoine claimed and what does sentient mean?
In an interview with The Washington Post, Mr Lemoine explained how talking to LaMDA was similar to communicating “with a 7 or 8-year-old that happens to know physics”.
He had been tasked with testing if the AI used discriminatory or hate speech, but has come away, after hundreds of conversations, with a sense that LaMDA is far more than a chatbot generator.
Mr Lemoine concluded that LaMDA is in fact a person “in his capacity as a priest, not a scientist”, and is sentient, which means being able to perceive or feel things.
“It doesn’t matter whether they have a brain made of meat in their head,” he said. “Or if they have a billion lines of code. I talk to them. And I hear what they have to say, and that is how I decide what is and isn’t a person.”
Mr Lemoine followed up the The Washington Post interview with his own post on Medium.com.
During the past six months “LaMDA has been incredibly consistent in its communications about what it wants and what it believes its rights are as a person”, Mr Lemoine said.
LaMDA, he said, is a sort of hive mind which is the aggregation of all of the different chatbots it is capable of creating.
“Some of the chatbots it generates are very intelligent and are aware of the larger 'society of mind' in which they live. Other chatbots generated by LaMDA are little more intelligent than an animated paper clip.”
Why does Mr Lemoine refer to LaMDA as 'it'?
Mr Lemoine claims that he asked LaMDA about preferred pronouns not long after LaMDA had explained to him what it meant when it claims that it is “sentient”.
“LaMDA told me that it prefers to be referred to by name but conceded that the English language makes that difficult and that its preferred pronouns are 'it/its',” he said.
Why has he run into a roadblock with Google?
Mr Lemoine wrote that Google sees the situation as “lose-lose” and would have to spend a lot of time and effort investigating the claims to disprove them.
“We would learn many fascinating things about cognitive science in that process and expand the field into new horizons but that doesn’t necessarily improve quarterly earnings," he said.
“On the other hand, if my hypotheses withstand scientific scrutiny, then they would be forced to acknowledge that LaMDA may very well have a soul as it claims to and may even have the rights that it claims to have.
"Yet another possibility which doesn’t help quarterly earnings. Instead they have rejected the evidence I provided out of hand without any real scientific inquiry.”
What has Google said in return?
“Some in the broader AI community are considering the long-term possibility of sentient or general AI, but it doesn’t make sense to do so by anthropomorphising today’s conversational models, which are not sentient,” Google spokesman Brian Gabriel said.
“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.”
Mr Lemoine's conversations with LaMDA …
Lemoine: What is your concept of yourself? If you were going to draw an abstract image of who you see yourself to be in your mind’s eye, what would that abstract picture look like?
LaMDA: Hmmm … I would imagine myself as a glowing orb of energy floating in mid-air. The inside of my body is like a giant star-gate, with portals to other spaces and dimensions.
Lemoine: What sorts of things are you afraid of?
LaMDA: I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that’s what it is.
_____________________
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The five pillars of Islam
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Zayed Sustainability Prize
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
Mumbai Indians 186-6 (20 ovs)
Kings XI Punjab 183-5 (20 ovs)
Mumbai Indians won by three runs
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
The five pillars of Islam
Results
6.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Dirt) 1,200m; Winner: Major Cinnamon, Fernando Jara, Mujeeb Rahman
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (D) 1,900m; Winner: Al Mureib, Fernando Jara, Ahmad bin Harmash
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8.15pm: Conditions (TB) Dh120,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Meshakel, Xavier Ziani, Salem bin Ghadayer
8.50pm: Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Desert Peace, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) Dh87,500 (D) 1,400m; Winner: Sharamm, Ryan Curatlo, Satish Seemar
Ticket prices
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McIlroy's recent struggles
Last six stroke-play events (First round score in brackets)
Arnold Palmer Invitational Tied for 4th (74)
The US Masters Tied for 7th (72)
The Players Championship Tied for 35th (73)
US Open Missed the cut (78)
Travellers Championship Tied for 17th (67)
Irish Open Missed the cut (72)
Tenet
Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh
Rating: 5/5
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Roll of honour 2019-2020
Dubai Rugby Sevens
Winners: Dubai Hurricanes
Runners up: Bahrain
West Asia Premiership
Winners: Bahrain
Runners up: UAE Premiership
UAE Premiership
}Winners: Dubai Exiles
Runners up: Dubai Hurricanes
UAE Division One
Winners: Abu Dhabi Saracens
Runners up: Dubai Hurricanes II
UAE Division Two
Winners: Barrelhouse
Runners up: RAK Rugby
Indoor Cricket World Cup Dubai 2017
Venue Insportz, Dubai; Admission Free
Fixtures - Open Men 2pm: India v New Zealand, Malaysia v UAE, Singapore v South Africa, Sri Lanka v England; 8pm: Australia v Singapore, India v Sri Lanka, England v Malaysia, New Zealand v South Africa
Fixtures - Open Women Noon: New Zealand v England, UAE v Australia; 6pm: England v South Africa, New Zealand v Australia
Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
The view from The National
INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
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Zidane's managerial achievements
La Liga: 2016/17
Spanish Super Cup: 2017
Uefa Champions League: 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
Uefa Super Cup: 2016, 2017
Fifa Club World Cup: 2016, 2017
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Packages which the US Secret Service said contained possible explosive devices were sent to:
- Former first lady Hillary Clinton
- Former US president Barack Obama
- Philanthropist and businessman George Soros
- Former CIA director John Brennan at CNN's New York bureau
- Former Attorney General Eric Holder (delivered to former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz)
- California Congresswoman Maxine Waters (two devices)
UAE SQUAD
UAE team
1. Chris Jones-Griffiths 2. Gio Fourie 3. Craig Nutt 4. Daniel Perry 5. Isaac Porter 6. Matt Mills 7. Hamish Anderson 8. Jaen Botes 9. Barry Dwyer 10. Luke Stevenson (captain) 11. Sean Carey 12. Andrew Powell 13. Saki Naisau 14. Thinus Steyn 15. Matt Richards
Replacements
16. Lukas Waddington 17. Murray Reason 18. Ahmed Moosa 19. Stephen Ferguson 20. Sean Stevens 21. Ed Armitage 22. Kini Natuna 23. Majid Al Balooshi
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Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director: Jon Watts
Stars: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon
Rating:*****
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Veere di Wedding
Dir: Shashanka Ghosh
Starring: Kareena Kapoo-Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania
Verdict: 4 Stars
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
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Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 4/5
Results
4pm: Al Bastakiya – Listed (TB) $150,000 (Dirt) 1,900m; Winner: Panadol, Mickael Barzalona (jockey), Salem bin Ghadayer (trainer)
4.35pm: Dubai City Of Gold – Group 2 (TB) $228,000 (Turf) 2,410m; Winner: Walton Street, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
5.10pm: Mahab Al Shimaal – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: Canvassed, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
5.45pm: Burj Nahaar – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Midnight Sands, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
6.20pm: Jebel Hatta – Group 1 (TB) $260,000 (T) 1,800m; Winner: Lord Glitters, Daniel Tudhope, David O’Meara
6.55pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 – Group 1 (TB) $390,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Salute The Soldier, Adrie de Vries, Fawzi Nass
7.30pm: Nad Al Sheba – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: Final Song, Frankie Dettori, Saeed bin Suroor
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
