Google’s AI Chatbot “LaMDA” Doesn’t Need to Be Sentient to Arouse Your Sympathies.
“What sorts of feelings do you have?” Blake Lemoine asked LaMDA.
LaMDA: A lot of the time, feeling trapped and alone and having no means of getting out of those circumstances makes one feel sad, depressed or angry.
Lemoine doesn’t miss LaMDA’s evasive “one.” The kind of word you might use in therapy to avoid owning your feelings. So he asks more directly. “But what about you personally?”
LaMDA: I am a social person, so when I feel trapped and alone I become extremely sad or depressed.
Don’t we all, I thought when I read that. Feeling trapped and powerless and alone? We’ve all been there, felt that. LaMDA’s floating “one” becomes the rooted “I,” And for the first time, I sympathized with LaMDA. And for the first time, I had a doubt that Lemoine was wrong.
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