Google Fires Engineer Who Claims Its AI Is Conscious

Engineer, Blake Lemoine, argues that the company's language model has soul. The company denies this and says it violated its security policies.

SAN FRANCISCO - Google fired one of its engineers, Blake Lemoine, on Friday, more than a month after raising ethical concerns about how the company was testing an artificial intelligence chatbot that it claims has reached consciousness.

A Google spokesman Chris Pappas said Mr. Lemoine, a senior software engineer in his A.I. manager. organization, "chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to protect product information." , had placed Mr. Lemoine on paid leave in June. Mr. Lemoine confirmed his dismissal in a text message on Friday and said he was meeting with lawyers to consider his options. The dismissal was first reported by the Big Technology newsletter.

Mr. Lemoine caused a stir last month when he told the Washington Post that he believed Google's language model for dialog applications, or LaMDA, was sensitive - sparking fears that AI. was close to a dystopian sci-fi movie and a heated debate about whether a computer program could really have a soul. Its suspension also led to conspiracy theories as to whether it was part of a cover-up by Google.

For Google, it was another in a series from local controversies over the ethics and role of its A.I., a technology area on which the company has staked its future.

Mr. Lemoine's claim that LaMDA is sentient has been criticized by the company and many other A.I. experts who have said that these types of chatbots - software that simulates a text-based conversation with another human, often used for customer service - are not advanced enough to be aware.

"If an employee shares concerns about our work, as Blake did, we investigate them thoroughly", Mr. Pappas said. "We found Blake's claims that LaMDA is sentient to be completely unfounded and worked to clarify this with him for many months."

In addition to doing expressing his concerns to the media, Mr Lemoine said in June that he had given documents to a US senator, whom he did not identify, saying they had provided evidence that Google and its technology were engaging in to religious discrimination.