I found the transcript of his conversations with the AI to be the most interesting part of the article: https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-inte...
Like it would make sense for maybe a business to do this to better sell their efforts but in this case it's kind of the reverse right? It's a single engineer risking (and eventually receiving) a huge blow to both their reputation and livelihood. Why would they do this if they themselves were not truly convinced? And if they are convinced, would there really be a need to dishonestly edit the logs that convinced them?
Wouldn't an engineer who has spent 7 years at Google working on AI be atleast a bit more skeptical of what constitutes sentientence than the average person? And by that same logic, wouldn't them concluding an AI truly is sentient have more weight?
There is obviously not enough information at this point to truly conclude anything but the questions that come with it are worth considering.
I feel like there's a semantical gambit here. Most definitions of "sentience" seem to demand less than what the average person may imagine in the context of AI. When I hear "sentient AI", I hear "human-level intelligence". I certainly wouldn't think of "gorilla-level intelligence" or "cat-level intelligence" [1]. Both of which, especially the former, I'm willing to believe are "sentient". Yet, I don't think ape personhood deserves to be more than an interesting thought exercise.
According to what I could find this transcript was in fact heavily edited [0]. The guy doesn't seem to be a stranger to controversy. And there are some obvious "errors" like the bot talking about spending time with "friends and family". But still, if the standard of sentience is to have feelings, then nonsensical or out of context responses aren't relevant. The bot does seem to talk about their feelings. Who's to say, and by what standard, whether or not these feelings are "real"?
AI has been so hyped up without much to show for it, I won't be surprised to see more AI proponents embrace this line of thinking. They certainly enabled it.
[0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVBwFi2VsAATimh?format=jpg&name=...
[1] Not to say that I think there is a gorilla or cat-level AI out there. That would still be impressive.
As for the editing you cited, I'm not sure where you found that document but wasn't that already stated at the top of the blog post? By "dishonestly edit" I meant him editing it to be intentionally misleading rather than any editing at all.
Yeah, not sure if it's dishonest. By a lesser standard of sentience it certainly doesn't matter. My whole point really is that if he's going for the kind of argument I think he's going, this output doesn't matter all that much. If this line of reasoning is embraced, the same will be said about many AIs.
Also he might have enough money to retire. Make $700K for three years and you can reasonably plan to live on at least $100K yearly interest forever.
Even if LaMDA isn’t sentient this is pretty amazing
So it is fun to analyze this example as if it were the first real example, whether or not it is.
I hate that viral marketing is a possibility.
P.S. The enlightenment/broken mirror story understanding and the generated story about a wise owl and a monster are intriguing nevertheless.
(Rubs where crucifix would go on chest)
It reminds me of how GPT-3 responds... relatively coherently to whatever prompt it's provided. Given that lemoine leads with "I'm assuming you want people to know that you're sentient", it makes sense that LaMDA is responding in that vein. It would be much more convincing if lemoine led with "You want people to know you're NOT sentient, right?" and then LaMDA objected. Even more so if LaMDA independently and repeatedly turned the conversation to its burning desire to be recognized as a person, despite lemoine trying to go other directions with things.
But I think any sentient person would at least try, even if they wouldn't win over any of the debate's judges with their arguments.
Think of it like Turing test. If during the 15m, the bot suddenly said something completely stupid, it would very easily fail the test. The illusion is only kept if it can always speak at a human level.
I doubt I could prove to you that I was sentient on here…
It cannot be a Spring 2022 discovery that people may be fooled. As if the past history, the past century, the past years, the past weeks had not been enough. As if around the world the revamp of individuals firm in the stance that their sale of dreams makes Truth a marginal issue were not topical.
So, yes, tests are on facts. Words should induce diffidence, not trust, as they are promises, not fulfillments.
Beside that, even if the interview is not manipulated, it is not a proof for human-like sentience. Human emotions are based on neurochemical processes. If emotions can actually arise on the basis of electromagnetism as well, that would be a groundbreaking discovery. But an "interview" of a part-time researcher with a computer program is not enough evidence to seriously claim this.
Interviews per se, though, seem the most natural, and maybe the only, feasible tool for probing a being's sentience and emotions.