Google engineer on leave after saying AI chatbot is sentient
Lemoine is an engineer at Google’s AI responsible organization. He described the system that he had been working on, since last autumn, as being sentient. It has a perception and ability to express feelings and thoughts comparable to those of a child.

Lemoine told The Washington Post that if he didn’t know what the computer program was, he would have thought it was an eight-year old or seven-year old kid who happens to be good at physics.

He claimed LaMDA had engaged him in discussions about rights and personhood. Lemoine then shared his findings in April with executives of the company in a GoogleDoc titled \”Is LaMDA Sentient?\”

Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/12/google-engineer-ai-bot-sentient-blake-lemoine