Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagBlake Lemoine

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Robot, chat bot, android and digital evolution of robotics. Future processor development technologies. 3D illustration of quantum cyberspace. AI and global data

About the claim that chatbot Claude 3 showed self-awareness…

Has anyone noticed the resemblance between the conviction that an AI project thinks like a human and that extraterrestrials are visiting us?
Just as extraterrestrials are Out There because we don’t want to think we are alone, chatbots are Becoming Human because we don’t want to feel we are unique. Read More ›
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robot learning or solving problems

Can AI Ever Be Sentient? A Conversation with Blake Lemoine

AI can mimic sentience, but can it ever be sentient? On this episode, we return to our conversation with former Google engineer Blake Lemoine. Host Robert J. Marks has a lively back and forth with Lemoine, who made national headlines when, as an employee of Google, he claimed that Google’s AI software, dubbed LaMDA, might be sentient. Lemoine recounts his experience at Google and Read More ›

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Revisiting Marks, Lemoine, on AI and Consciousness

What is AI? In what sense can it be said to be "intelligent"? Could it ever be sentient, or conscious?
AI experts differ on the capabilities of artificial intelligence, and where this technology is headed. Read More ›
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Digital Fractal Realms

Blake Lemoine and the LaMDA Question

In this continuation of last week’s conversation, ex-Googler Blake Lemoine tells Robert J. Marks what originally got him interested in AI: reading the science fiction of Isaac Asimov as a boy in rural Louisiana. The two go on to discuss and debate sentience in AI, non-computable traits of human beings, and the question of the soul. Additional Resources

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Chatbot computer program designed for conversation with human users over the Internet. Support and customer service automation technology concept.

A Chat with Blake Lemoine on Google and AI Sentience

Former Google employee Blake Lemoine claimed that the Large Language Model LaMDA was a sentient being. The claim got him fired. In this episode, Lemoine sits down with Robert J. Marks to discuss AI, what he was doing at Google, and why he believes artificial intelligence can be sentient.   Additional Resources

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Chatbot assistant, Ai Artificial Intelligence

Prof: How We Know Google’s Chatbot LaMDA Is Not a “Self”

Carissa Véliz, an Oxford philosophy prof who studies AI, explains where Google engineer Blake Lemoine is getting things mixed up

Say what you want about Blake “LaMDA is a person!” Lemoine. He has forced many people to help us clarify what AI — and in particular, a large language program — is and is not. For that, we should thank him. First, LaMDA is not conscious, sentient, not a self. And second, it’s not even a new idea, just a much bigger and more sophisticated version of a 1960s idea. Oxford philosophy prof Carissa Véliz, author of Privacy Is Power (2021) reminds us of philosopher Thomas Nagel’s seminal question, What is it like to be a bat? Nagel meant that, if an entity is be conscious or sentient, there must be something that it “is like” to be that entity. Read More ›

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Chatbot chat bot customer service automation. Hand pressing button on virtual screen.

When LaMDA “Talked” to a Google Engineer, Turns Out It Had Help

Evidence points to someone doing quite a good edit job. A tech maven would like to see the raw transcript…

Readers may recall that Google engineer Blake Lemoine was placed on leave for telling media that a large language program he was working on is a sentient being. Some Googlers looked into the matter and this is what they found: A Washington Post story on Lemoine’s suspension included messages from LaMDA such as “I think I am human at my core. Even if my existence is in the virtual world.” But the chat logs leaked in the Washington Post’s article include disclaimers from Lemoine and an unnamed collaborator which noted: “This document was edited with readability and narrative coherence in mind.” The final document — which was labeled “Privileged & Confidential, Need to Know” — was an “amalgamation” of nine Read More ›