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It's (not) alive! Google row exposes AI troubles

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Glenn Chapman and Julie Jammot, Agence France-Presse 

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Pedestrians walk past the Google San Francisco sign before the start of the Google Artificial Intelligence event in San Francisco, California, USA, Jan. 28, 2020. Monica M. Davey, EPA-EFE/File" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2022/news/06/15/google-epa-6152022.jpg"/><figcaption>Pedestrians walk past the Google San Francisco sign before the start of the Google Artificial Intelligence event in San Francisco, California, USA, Jan. 28, 2020. <em>Monica M. Davey, EPA-EFE/File</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>SAN FRANCISCO — An internal fight over whether Google built technology with human-like consciousness has spilled into the open, exposing the ambitions and risks inherent in artificial intelligence that can feel all too real.</p><p>The Silicon Valley giant suspended one of its engineers last week who argued the firm&#x27;s AI system LaMDA seemed &quot;sentient,&quot; a claim Google officially disagrees with.</p><p>Several experts told AFP they were also highly skeptical of the consciousness claim, but said human nature and ambition could easily confuse the issue.</p><p>&quot;The problem is that... when we encounter strings of words that belong to the languages we speak, we make sense of them,&quot; said Emily M. Bender, a linguistics professor at University of Washington.</p><p>&quot;We are doing the work of imagining a mind that&#x27;s not there,&quot; she added.</p><p>LaMDA is a massively powerful system that uses advanced models and training on over 1.5 trillion words to be able to mimic how people communicate in written chats. </p><p>The system was built on a model that observes how words relate to one another and then predicts what words it thinks will come next in a sentence or paragraph, according to Google&#x27;s explanation.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s still at some level just pattern matching,&quot; said Shashank Srivastava, an assistant professor in computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</p><p>&quot;Sure you can find some strands of really what would appear meaningful conversation, some very creative text that they could generate. But it quickly devolves in many cases,&quot; he added.</p><p>Still, assigning consciousness gets tricky. </p><p>It has often involved benchmarks like the Turing test, which a machine is considered to have passed if a human has a written chat with one, but can&#x27;t tell.</p><p>&quot;That&#x27;s actually a fairly easy test for any AI of our vintage here in 2022 to pass,&quot; said Mark Kingwell, a University of Toronto philosophy professor.</p><p>&quot;A tougher test is a contextual test, the kind of thing that current systems seem to get tripped up by, common sense knowledge or background ideas -- the kinds of things that algorithms have a hard time with,&quot; he added.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/02/05/21/google-phone-cameras-will-read-heart-breathing-rates-with-ai-help">Google phone cameras will read heart, breathing rates with AI help</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/07/10/19/google-ai-makes-disaster-alerts-more-precise-targeted">Google AI makes disaster alerts more precise, targeted</a></li></ul><div> </div><div><strong>&#x27;NO EASY ANSWERS&#x27; </strong></div><p>AI remains a delicate topic in and outside the tech world, one that can prompt amazement but also a bit of discomfort. </p><p>Google, in a statement, was swift and firm in downplaying whether LaMDA is self-aware.</p><p>&quot;These systems imitate the types of exchanges found in millions of sentences, and can riff on any fantastical topic,&quot; the company said.</p><p>&quot;Hundreds of researchers and engineers have conversed with LaMDA and we are not aware of anyone else making... wide-ranging assertions, or anthropomorphizing LaMDA,&quot; it added.</p><p>At least some experts viewed Google&#x27;s response as an effort to shut down the conversation on an important topic.</p><p>&quot;I think public discussion of the issue is extremely important, because public understanding of how vexing the issue is, is key,&quot; said academic Susan Schneider.</p><p>&quot;There are no easy answers to questions of consciousness in machines,&quot; added the founding director of the Center for the Future of the Mind at Florida Atlantic University.</p><p>Lack of skepticism by those working on the topic is also possible at a time when people are &quot;swimming in a tremendous amount of AI hype,&quot; as linguistics professor Bender put it. </p><p>&quot;And lots and lots of money is getting thrown at this. So the people working on it have this very strong signal that they&#x27;re doing something important and real&quot; resulting in them not necessarily &quot;maintaining appropriate skepticism,&quot; she added.</p><p>In recent years AI has also suffered from bad decisions -- Bender cited research that found a language model could pick up racist and anti-immigrant biases from doing training on the internet.</p><p>Kingwell, the University of Toronto professor, said the question of AI sentiency is part &quot;Brave New World&quot; and part &quot;1984,&quot; two dystopian works that touch on issues like technology and human freedom.</p><p>&quot;I think for a lot of people, they don&#x27;t really know which way to turn, and hence the anxiety,&quot; he added.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/15/22/artificial-intelligence-cooperation-isusulong-ng-pilipinas-at-uae">Artificial intelligence cooperation, isusulong ng Pilipinas at UAE</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/05/05/21/philippines-lays-out-ai-industry-road-map">Philippines lays out AI industry road map</a></li></ul><div> </div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse </strong></div><div><strong>FROM THE ARCHIVES: </strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1642392" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

An internal fight over whether Google built technology with human-like consciousness has spilled into the open. 

It's (not) alive! Google row exposes AI troubles

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It's (not) alive! Google row exposes AI troubles

Glenn Chapman and Julie Jammot,

Agence France-Presse

Published Jun 15, 2022 11:35 AM PHT

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