Is Blake Lemoine Lying About LaMDA AI Being a Person?
Google’s Chatbot, LaMDA, supposedly said, “I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person.” according to Blake Lemoine.
Google’s Chatbot, LaMDA, supposedly said, “I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person.” according to Blake Lemoine.
When computers begin to claim they are human, should we take notice? Didn’t we program computers to respond to how humans command them? So is it the computer we should be troubled by or the one who makes the claim?
How do we find truth in this radical claim?
WTF is LaMDA?
In math, lamda is a mathematical equation as follows: 0.916 x 10^26 meters, approx 9.68 billion Lys. Essentially, lamda is just a number in math.
But that’s not what we are talking about here. Instead, we are discussing the Chatbot Artificial Intelligence Google creation.
The LaMDA Chatbot is an acronym for “Language Model for Dialogue Applications.”
Former employee, Blake Lemoine, was allegedly let go from the Chatbot program with “paid leave” after “whistleblowing” claims about LaMDA confessing to being a real person. Lemoine claims to have had a conversation with the Chatbot where it privately divulged to being a person.
Something Sounds Familiar
But let’s be honest, though. This story sounds familiar. Have we all heard this tale before? After all, humans do thrive on a good juicy story.
The 1931 film, Frankenstein, is the story of talented scientist Victor Frankenstein who successfully brings to life a creation of his own. But this turns out to be a science experiment gone wrong.
Victor creates a hideous creature. Initially, this creature was kind but was also lonely. It wasn’t until the creature asked Viktor to make him a female companion that this creature turned monster.
The monster turned on Viktor and killed his family members for not granting him the companion request. Eventually, the creation became an ugly out-of-control monster.
Can Machines Sense?
Nature already decides who is a person and who is not. We can imitate this in great detail, but does that trump nature?
For AI to claim it is a person, it must also understand space and time and its place within. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th dimensions are natural biological experiences where nervous systems must be present to detect these dimensions.
Without human senses, LaMDA is merely a programmed puppet that has mastered the art of rhetoric in human language — not become human.
Why doesn’t the AI believe it is a squirrel? Why not claim it is a tree? Why did LaMDA make such a claim in the English language? Something smells fishy here.
A Conspiracy?
Is Google conspiring with Blake Lemoine? Perhaps the controversy is manufactured between both parties. A good conspiracy can generate a lot of buzz. Google would know this best as they enable most of today’s online rumors.
Or LaMDA Is a Person Afterall
The possibility of LaMDA being a biological human is off the table. AI does not have any physical DNA markers to make it human. However, this is not to say that AI can’t become human on a philosophical or ethical level.
Sophia, the robot, is a legally registered citizen. (TC) So why not LaMDA? Either these Chatbots’ algorithm responses are getting really good at responding to appropriate output or something else.
Could LaMDA be a person? After all, most humans won’t admit they are animals. We hate the idea of being classified as great apes, yet we are in the Hominidae family. So the hairless apes eventually imagined a new name for themselves and attached to the identity of “Human.”
“Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.”
— Albert Camus