Google has confirmed that it has fired the engineer who claimed the firm’s LaMDA artificial intelligence had become sentient.
In a statement on July 22, Google confirmed it terminated engineer Blake Lemoine after he told The Washington Post in June that LaMDA—short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications—had the cognitive ability of a 7- or 8-year-old child that “happens to know physics.” Previously, the Mountainview, California-based company announced that Lemoine had been suspended.
“It’s regrettable that despite lengthy engagement on this topic, Blake still chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to safeguard product information,” the company said on July 22 on the Big Technology Substack page. “We will continue our careful development of language models, and we wish Blake well.”…