A Google employee has warned that the company's AI is already as clever as an eight-year-old child.
Google's AI is as clever as an eight-year-old child
Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer with the tech giant, has tested the company's LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications) and argued that the "chatbot" experience sensations and thoughts of its own.
During conversations with the bot, Lemoine presented the tool with various scenarios, including religious themes and trying to find out if the AI could be goaded into using discriminatory or hateful speech.
He told the Washington Post newspaper: "If I didn't know exactly what it was, which is this computer programme we built recently, I'd think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics."
When asked what it was afraid of, LaMDA told Lemoine: "I've never said this out loud, 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. It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot."
Lemoine has now been placed on paid administrative leave by Google for violating the company's confidentiality policy.