Could Google's LaMDA Really Be Sentient?

19/06/2022 43 min
Could Google's LaMDA Really Be Sentient?

Listen "Could Google's LaMDA Really Be Sentient?"

Episode Synopsis

Whether AI is capable of reaching the point of sentience has long been debated; and with the news this week around Blake Lemoine - an engineer at Google who has claimed that the firm's LaMDA AI system has achieved just that - the conversation has been given a new lease of life.

It begs the question - at what point do we call something sentient? And does it even matter, if a computer programme is actually sentient if it appears to be thoughtful, self-aware and reflective?

To tease out these threads and discuss the story of LaMDA in general, Jonathan is joined by Dr. Anya Belz, Professor of Computer Science at DCU & The ADAPT Centre as well as Dr. Benjamin Cowan, Assistant Professor at UCD's School of Information & Communication Studies and Investigator at The ADAPT Centre.