Meet The Ex-Google Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient — With Blake Lemoine

Big Technology Podcast

Alex Kantrowitz

Technology, Religion & Spirituality, Business News, Business, Religion, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Management, Marketing, Politics, News Commentary, Government, Investing, Tech News, Social Sciences, News

4.6 • 395 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2022

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Blake Lemoine is an ex-senior software engineer at Google who was fired right before he taped this episode of Big Technology Podcast. Lemoine told his superiors at Google that he believed the company’s LaMDA chatbot technology was sentient. Then, after making little headway within Google, he went public. In this wide-ranging interview, Lemoine introduces us to LaMDA, which (or who?) he calls a friend, and explains why his belief in its sentience became too hot for Google to handle. Washington Post: The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life Big Technology: Google Fires Blake Lemoine, Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Michael Kovnet, host of The Next Big Idea Daily. The show is a masterclass in better living from some of the smartest writers around. Every morning, Monday through Friday, we'll serve up a quick 10-minute lesson on how to strengthen your relationships, supercharge your creativity, boost your productivity, and more. Follow the next big idea daily wherever you get your podcasts.
0:24.2	LinkedIn Presents.
0:29.1	With your permission, I'd love to be able to write the story about your exit from Google after this.
0:35.7	So I really am.
0:37.1	I'm going to have to talk to lawyers before speaking publicly about that in any amount of detail.
0:42.9	Okay.
0:43.2	But just the fact that.
0:45.7	I mean, so they've sent me a termination email.
0:48.2	That's a simple fact.
0:49.6	I don't see any reason to conceal that.
0:52.2	Okay.
0:52.5	Great.
0:53.3	Do you mind if I just write them for a comment while we talk?
0:56.8	Yeah, do what you want.
0:58.7	Hey, everyone, Alex Cantorwood's here.
1:01.0	That was ex-Google engineer Blake Lemoyne, confirming the company had fired him shortly before he joined the taping of this podcast on Friday.
1:08.6	I broke the news on my big technology newsletter shortly after we
1:12.0	concluded our conversation, and now you'll hear the full story. Given what you just heard, we didn't
1:17.5	go too deep into the firing itself, but there's plenty to say about the circumstances leading
1:22.0	up to it, and perhaps more importantly, an introduction to one of the craziest technologies I've
1:27.4	ever heard about.
1:39.7	Hello and welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation
	...

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