Google fired one of its engineers who claimed that the company's artificial intelligence system had feelings.
Last month, Blake Lemoine went public with his theory that Google's speech technology has feelings and therefore its “wishes” should be respected. Google and several artificial intelligence experts have denied these claims, and on Friday the company confirmed that he had been fired, writes the BBC.
Google said in a statement that Mr. Lemoine's claims about The Language Model for Dialogue Applications (Lamda) were “completely unfounded” and that the company had been working with him for “many months” to clarify.
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“So unfortunately, despite working on this topic for a long time, Blake still decided to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies, which include the need to protect product information,” the statement said.
Lamda is a revolutionary technology that Google says can have free conversations. This is the company's tool for creating chatbots.
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Blake Lemoine began making claims last month when he said Lamda showed signs of having human consciousness. This has sparked a debate among artificial intelligence experts and enthusiasts about the progress of the technology, which is designed to mimic the human mind.
The engineer told The Washington Post that his job was to test whether the technology used discriminatory language or hate speech.
He found that she displayed self-awareness and could hold conversations about religion, emotions, and fears. This led Lemoine to believe that behind his impressive verbal abilities there might also be a mental mind.
Google denied his findings and he was placed on paid leave for violating the company's privacy policy.
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Then Lemoine published a conversation he and another person had with Lamda to confirm their claims.
In Google said in a statement that it takes the responsible development of artificial intelligence “very seriously” and published a report detailing it. It added that any employee concerns about the company's technology are “extensively” addressed and that Lamda has undergone 11 audits.
Mr Lemoine is not the first artificial intelligence engineer to publicly say that the technology AI is becoming more and more conscious.
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