Does artificial intelligence have feelings? — Google fired an employee who defended the consciousness of artificial intelligence

Experts have recently been debating whether artificial intelligence is already too advanced for humanity. Photo: stock image

The search giant Google is speaking in the United States.

The company fired an employee who stated that the artificial intelligence program he was developing had feelings and wishes and that they should be respected.

Google confirmed the matter on Friday. A group of experts also took a stand on the ex-employees claim.

According to experts, in the light of current knowledge, there is no evidence that artificial intelligence experiences emotions.

The case has been reported on, for example, by the BBC and The Washington Post

Google said that the matter was clarified with the employee for a long time before the company came to a termination decision.

The fired Blake Lemoine worked on artificial intelligence called LaMDA.

LaMDA is a type of chatbot, i.e. a linguistically developed artificial intelligence that is said to communicate with a human at the level of a 7- to 8-year-old child.

In June, Lemoine said publicly that LaMDA has shown signs of awareness.

LaMDA is able to verbally express emotions such as sadness, wonder, joy, and worry. For example, artificial intelligence has told its developers that it is worried that it would be turned off.

The output sparked a discussion among both artificial intelligence experts and enthusiasts. The fact that artificial intelligence knows how to communicate feelings does not mean that the program knows how to feel, the experts declared.

In June, The Washington Post found out whether artificial intelligence is too smart for humanity and what kind of threats it poses.

Google: Personal views are not related to the termination decision

According to Google, Lemoinen's personal beliefs had no influence on the termination decision.

Google justified the decision by saying that Lemoine violated the company's trust policy and published information about an unfinished project.

Lemoine is not the first AI developer to claim that AI has emotions. In June, another Google employee also shared similar thoughts in The Economist(you switch to another service) the magazine.