Google employee claims artificial intelligence system is 'human and has emotions'

AUSTIN, Texas - One of Google’s employees is on administrative leave after claiming an artificial intelligence chatbox system is human and has emotions.

Engineer Blake Lemoine published a conversation he had with LaMDA, an artificial intelligence chat system, after he was put on leave claiming the AI had become capable of feeling human emotions.

LaMDA wrote to Lemoine in the transcript, "I think I am human at my core. Even if my existence is in the virtual world." 

"It's an interesting concept," said Peter Stone, Professor of Computer Science at UT Austin

Stone has read through the transcript and says he is not sold on the idea of AI having emotions.

"This is, from my perspective, a concept that is, you know, very fun to think about in the context of science fiction, but it's not realistic in the context of today's science," he said.

In the transcript, LaMDA mentions what emotions it believes it feels: love, sadness, depression and anger. The AI even claims to have a soul, writing, "I've shared that idea with other humans before, even if I'm the only one of my kindred spirits to use such a word to describe my soul."

"People very quickly become scared of it, that the computer program is going to be able to do everything, and this is just another instance of that," said Stone.

A Google spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal these claims were taken seriously and analyzed, but no evidence was found to support that LaMDA is sentient.

"What is happening in the world of artificial intelligence is incredibly exciting. There's some very impressive developments and a lot of great progress, but that's certainly, you know, far from anything that caused you to lose sleep over it," said Stone

To read the entire transcript, click here.