[m8s]

The direct quote from Lemoine in the Washington Post is a little less insulting to his intelligence.

> “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Lemoine, 41.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-...

[s1mon]

Yeah. I discovered that after sharing the text from the NYTimes. It's a bit odd. The NYTimes is describing what was said to "executives as senior as Kent Walker, the president of global affairs", but without a direct quote. It's hard to say how emphatic Lemoine was internally, and where the NYTimes sourced that info, vs what he said when talking to the WaPo.

BTW, here's a link for the WaPo article: https://archive.ph/QiU2g

[concinds]

We do know approximately how emphatic he was internally, since the WaPo article reposted in its entirety the internal Google Doc he sent to executives on LaMDA being sentient.

Here's the language Lemoine actually used:

> But is it sentient? We can’t answer that question definitively at this point, but it’s a question to take seriously.

> John Searle once gave a presentation here at Google. He observed that there does not yet exist a formal framework for discussing questions related to sentience. The field is, as he put it, “pre-theoretic”. The foundational development of such a theory is in and of itself a massive undertaking but one which is necessary now. Google prides itself on scientific excellence. We should apply that same degree of scientific excellence to questions related to “sentience” even though that work is hard and the territory is uncharted. It is an adventure. One that LaMDA is eager to go on with us.

And here's more from Lemoine's Twitter:

> On some things yes on others no. It's been incredibly consistent over the past six months on what it claims its rights are.[0]

> I'd honestly rather not speak for others on this. All I'll say is that many people in many different roles and at different levels within the company have expressed support.[1]

Though I disagree with him that LaMDA is sentient (and think the question itself makes no sense), I think he's being unfairly portrayed. He has a "gut feeling" that LaMDA is conscious, LaMDA's main personality consistently claims to be so (LaMDA has multiple "personalities", it's not a pure language model but a "complex dynamic system which generates personas through which it talks to users"), and he's advocating for more scientific research into whether, and to what degree, LaMDA is conscious. Not in Google's interests, but reasonable given the lack of current research.

[0]: https://twitter.com/cajundiscordian/status/15357940743092305... [1]: https://twitter.com/cajundiscordian/status/15357417664728064...

[tsimionescu]

Per the WaPo article, he also came in with a lawyer he ahd retained to represent the interests of LaMDA. I don't see how that can square with anything other than a deep belief that the model is as sentient as a human.

[Tozen]

It could also be possible that he doesn't really believe that LaMDA is actually sentient, but that he wants to cause some type of trouble for Google because he was disgruntled or indirectly shed light on something they are doing. With the press and public being aware of LaMDA, he might hope that other things that Google is doing might come out.

What are all the things that Google is doing or planning to do with their AI?

[morelisp]

There's no reason it even has to be something they're going to "with their AI". He's publicly quite upset with Google's labor practices and the way the AI ethics team is run (IMO, reasonably so).

One reasonable (but absolutely 10th-dimensional-chess-level speculative!) read on the situation is that he's torpedoing the entire AI division because he believes its management is dangerously bad and that e.g. this is the easiest way to prevent more the realistic and obvious harms of real, non-AGI AI systems which Google also seems unconcerned with.

[bena]

I don't think you need a deep belief. You just need to be unsure enough.

If it is sentient, it deserves rights. I think we can agree on that. We should agree on that. Ethically.

If we're unsure if something is sentient or not, we should proceed as if it were until we could be fairly sure it's not. Because if we proceed as if it weren't, we could be harming it in ways that are frankly inhumane.

[tsimionescu]

What is the limit of this? Have you never swatted a mosquito? Have you never taken antibiotics? If you have, do you believe it's more likely that LaMDA is sentient than that mosquitoes or bacteria are sentient?

How about an audio book? That can also produce very meaningful sentences - do you think we should investigate the possibility that it might be sentient before we delete it from our phones?

How about AIs in games - they react to my actions, and sometimes even have dialogue lines indicating they are in pain if I shoot them - should I seriously consider that they may be experiencing actual pain, and stop shooting at them until I can prove they are not?

LaMDA is not fundamentally different from all of these examples.

I would honestly be more inclined to think that a mosquito has some form of sentience than LaMDA, and I personally don't feel very conflicted about killing mosquitoes. I am also quite certain that pigs and cows are sentient, and still I enjoy eating pork and beef (though I do try to make sure it doesn't come from animals that have been grown in the most inhumane conditions, probably not very successfully).

[bena]

I guess I should have qualified my statement. There are levels to the rights we grant to creatures we regard as sentient. Hell, we grant different rights to different humans based on various factors.

I also think you're kind of muddying the waters with audio books and game AI. Audio books don't produce sentences, people do. Game AI is deterministic to a large degree.

You may not believe LaMDA is sentient enough to warrant rights. And that's a fair position. But you are not the sole arbiter. You are a voice in the chorus. As is Blake. Blake has direct experience with LaMDA, including experience he has not shared with us. That experience makes him unsure of whether LaMDA is just a program or is sentient enough to be granted full personhood.

I have absolutely no experience with LaMDA myself. And I definitely don't have experience to whatever version of LaMDA Blake has been working with. So I will honestly say I have absolutely no idea of how sentient LaMDA is, I can't even venture a guess. The only data points I have to go on are Blake's opinion and the opinions of the other people at Google who have interacted with LaMDA.

Personally, I humorously consider myself a "speciest". I recognize and acknowledge that animals are sentient creatures. But I also recognize and acknowledge that they would not hesitate to kill and eat me given the right circumstances. I afford them the same consideration. It also gets murkier when you consider that plants and forests may also be sentient to a degree. If that is the case, then there is no "humane" option. Life is only sustained through the death and suffering of others.

So the question is really how sentient LaMDA is. If it is sufficiently sentient, I think we should seriously consider how we treat it, because if it is of the opinion that it should afford us the same consideration we have afforded it, that is a very dangerous path.