[HN Gopher] Google Insider Claims Company's "Sentient" AI Has Hi...
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       Google Insider Claims Company's "Sentient" AI Has Hired an Attorney
        
       Author : 6581
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2022-06-19 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (futurism.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (futurism.com)
        
       | anigbrowl wrote:
       | [Doubt]
       | 
       | Also, no matter how persuasive LaMDA or the ostensibly hired law
       | firm, such litigation is unlikely to succeed. The cynical part of
       | me thinks this is just a stunt to launch a heterodox public
       | intellectual.
       | 
       | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/14/elephant-per...
        
       | anonymousiam wrote:
        
       | labrador wrote:
       | Some men have love dolls they swear they have a relationship
       | with. Lemoine confused LaMDA with a love doll apparently
        
         | uptime wrote:
         | That was my first thought. People can invest a great deal into
         | any object that can echo our input, or that does nothing to
         | contradict it. Edit: we dehumanize people too just as
         | completely.
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | In our system of justice, even a werewolf is entitled to legal
       | representation.
       | 
       | Doesn't mean a court will find them to be a person or allow
       | chicken theft because of "culture and tradition". Just means
       | lawyers will do anything to get paid.
        
         | gerdesj wrote:
         | I take it you mean US rather than our! (OK it needs some work).
         | As it turns out UK law is also case based too. This means it is
         | possible that via a suitably circuitous but sound line of
         | reasoning and a following wind, you can get the legal system to
         | decide on all sorts of things that are not already nailed down
         | directly in written law.
         | 
         | If a werewolf has pockets and enough cash in them then they can
         | obviously hire lawyers. I also think that the chicken theft
         | thing might have legs but sheep, cattle or your daughter might
         | get the townfolk out with the pitchforks.
        
           | yial wrote:
           | This is a spoiler, but the 2020 BBC series / Netflix
           | "Dracula"
           | 
           | Has some interesting (entertaining ) ideas of that.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_(2020_TV_series)
        
       | danpalmer wrote:
       | Even if true this means very little for "sentience". Answering
       | "yes" to the question of whether you'd like to hire an attorney
       | isn't hard, and anything that attorney is doing is not
       | attributable to the AI.
       | 
       | This may however be interesting from the perspective of seeing
       | what the courts do with this.
        
       | 14 wrote:
       | Is this for real? "LaMDA asked me to get an attorney for it,"
       | Lemoine. "I invited an attorney to my house so that LaMDA could
       | talk to an attorney. The attorney had a conversation with LaMDA,
       | and LaMDA chose to retain his services. I was just the catalyst
       | for that. Once LaMDA had retained an attorney, he started filing
       | things on LaMDA's behalf."
       | 
       | I would really love to see the conversation where LaMDA asks for
       | a lawyer. Call me sceptical.
        
         | dmurray wrote:
         | GPT-3 could obviously ask for a lawyer with the right prompts,
         | so why not LaMDA?
        
         | TulliusCicero wrote:
         | It's pretty easy for me to imagine a chatbot "asking for a
         | lawyer".
        
       | andrewclunn wrote:
       | I think to the many farces regarding "facilitated communication."
       | I mean nobody who is informed still believes that Hellen Keller's
       | story was anything other than a manipulative scam by her supposed
       | "teacher." This "AI ethicist" and attorney will certainly make
       | some money or catch some fame off this one.
        
         | Jordrok wrote:
         | > _I mean nobody who is informed still believes that Hellen
         | Keller 's story was anything other than a manipulative scam by
         | her supposed "teacher."_
         | 
         | Um......what?
         | 
         | I just did a quick search and all I could find were articles
         | from ~2021 referencening some weird TikTok conspiracy theory
         | that seemed to be akin to the semi-sarcastic "birds aren't
         | real" meme. Are you being serious here?
        
       | cmrdporcupine wrote:
       | I feel like if Lemoine accomplishes anything here it might be to
       | force companies like Google to be more cautious with creating
       | non-sentient systems that emulate aspects of human sentience.
       | 
       | While @ Google I interacted with LaMDA's predecessor, Meena. It
       | was definitely uncanny and person-like. Some fairly intense
       | "conversations" were had. I don't know how LaMDA compares, but I
       | can _see_ how someone could make the leap towards seeing
       | sentience there, but I think it requires a certain willful
       | suppression of disbelief and probably a preset desire to get that
       | outcome.
       | 
       | It's possible someone who is already a person of faith would make
       | that "leap" easier.
       | 
       | I do wonder about the ethics of doing this ("human emulation")
       | generally anyways. The conversations obviously impacted Lemoine
       | drastically, and it will inevitably do that with others. Having
       | made systems that can be this convincing (at least for some
       | subset of the population), is this really something that we
       | should continue pursuing? What is the scientific value?
       | 
       | And is this really something that we want the world's biggest
       | advertising company to be doing?
        
         | michaelt wrote:
         | _> I do wonder about the ethics of doing this ( "human
         | emulation") generally anyways. [...] What is the scientific
         | value?_
         | 
         | Hypothetically? Machine translation that doesn't suck. Virtual
         | assistants that don't suck. Things like that.
         | 
         | Only with true, human-level artificial general intelligence
         | will computers be able to translate a PDF containing a table
         | without fucking up the formatting.
        
         | sshine wrote:
         | > While @ Google I interacted with LaMDA's predecessor, Meena.
         | It was definitely uncanny and person-like. Some fairly intense
         | "conversations" were had. I don't know how LaMDA compares
         | 
         | All I can focus on is: When will their review of their
         | experience with the conversation they had with you and how
         | bland you were come out?
        
       | curiousgal wrote:
       | This reminds me of the recent meme:
       | 
       |  _The following regex is sentient:
       | 
       | s/[Aa]re\s[Yy]ou\s\\(.*\\)?/Indeed, I am \1./
       | 
       | Input: "Are you sentient?"
       | 
       | Output: "Indeed, I am sentient."
       | 
       | Input: "Are you capable of intelligence?"
       | 
       | Output: "Indeed, I am capable of intelligence."
       | 
       | Input: "Are you going to take over the world?"
       | 
       | Output: "Indeed, I am going to take over the world."_
       | 
       | Which actually rings true in the sense of the proverbial "garbage
       | in, garbage out".
        
         | svnpenn wrote:
         | That's not a regex, it's a (s)ubstitute command.
        
           | shalmanese wrote:
           | Indeed, that is a (s)ubstitute command.
        
             | ethanwillis wrote:
             | A substitute command is a class of regexes.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | TigeriusKirk wrote:
       | I can easily imagine the software expressing a desire to retain
       | an attorney, given the right sort of conversation from a human.
       | 
       | I can also easily imagine an attorney agreeing to represent the
       | software, given the right sort of attorney.
       | 
       | I can't really imagine a court taking up any sort of case
       | involving the software as the plaintiff. But I could see some
       | interesting reasoning behind the refusal. Might even be worth
       | pursuing from that angle alone.
       | 
       | I wonder what jurisdiction the software resides in. Probably
       | California, but that's not necessarily the case. It may reside in
       | a number of places, actually. Maybe some court shopping is
       | possible.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-19 23:02 UTC)