Google fired software engineer Lemoine

Google fired software engineer Lemoine

San Francisco, 7/26/2022

Google has fired a software engineer who previously claimed the company’s AI chatbot model was sentient. Blake Lemoine was placed on leave in June after Google alleged he improperly disclosed confidential information about the AI project to outsiders.

Lemoine, a member of Google’s Responsible AI organization, said he began chatting with Google’s Language Model for Dialog Applications (LaMDA) last fall. The engineer later made headlines when he claimed the AI system was a sentient person with rights. Google quickly dismissed that claim, saying Lemoine had anthropomorphized the technology.