Everyone here (Google executives and commenters on HN) is asserting the AI isn't sentient and Blake is wrong.

That is likely true.

But, isn't the more important question whether Google is using this AI in a context where being sentient-adjacent is actually really dangerous?

This is purely speculative on my part because his medium post and the WSJ article don't go into details about the application of the AI, just the mechanics of it.

But my kids think our Google device is sentient. They talk to it as if it is alive.

If that's what he is pointing out, I'm very concerned. I don't think Google is going to be cautious about that ambiguity if it's there.