A flurry of activity occurred on social media after Blake Lemoine a Google developer, was placed on leave for claiming that LaMDA, a chatbot, had become sentient — in other words, had acquired the ability to experience feelings. In support of his claim, Lemoine posted excerpts from an exchange with LaMDA, which responded to queries by saying, “aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times.” It also stated that it has the same “wants and needs as people.”
It might seem like a trivial exchange and hardly worth the claim of sentience, even if it appears more realistic than early attempts. Even Lemoine’s evidence of the exchange was edited from several chat sessions. Nevertheless, the dynamic and fluid nature of the conversation is impressive.
