Could Google's LaMDA Really Be Sentient?

Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

Jonathan responds to your texts and tweets, is joined in studio for all the latest science stories for Newsround and speaks to one of our two guests featured on the show. Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Johnathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App. You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'

Could Google's LaMDA Really Be Sentient?

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.

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Could Google's LaMDA Really Be Sentient?