In news–Recently, a senior engineer at Google has claimed that the company’s artificial intelligence-based chatbot, Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) had become “sentient” (responsive to sense impressions).
About Chatbot-
- Google first announced LaMDA at its flagship developer conference I/O in 2021 as its generative language model for dialogue applications which can ensure that the Assistant would be able to converse on any topic.
- LaMDA can have a discussion based on a user’s inputs thanks completely to its language processing models.
- In 2021, the company had showcased how the LaMDA-inspired model would allow Google Assistant to have a conversation around which shoes to wear while hiking in the snow.
- At 2022’s I/O, Google announced LaMDA 2.0 which further builds on these capabilities. The new model can possibly take an idea and generate “imaginative and relevant descriptions”, stay on a particular topic even if a user strays off-topic, and can suggest a list of things needed for a specified activity.
- According to a report, Lemoine, who works in Google’s Responsible AI team, started chatting with LaMDA in 2021 as part of his job.
- However, after he and a collaborator at Google conducted an “interview” of the AI, involving topics like religion, consciousness and robotics, he came to the conclusion that the chatbot may be “sentient”.
- Claims have also spurred a debate on the capabilities and limitations of AI-based chatbots and if they can actually hold a conversation akin to human beings.
Other examples of AI systems & Chatbots-
- As electronics improved and first-generation computers came about, Joseph Weizenbaum of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory built ELIZA, a computer programme with which users could chat.
- ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity), another early chatbot developed by Richard Wallace, was capable of simulating human interaction.
- Chatbots like ‘Ask Disha‘ of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) are routinely used for customer engagement. The dialogue is predefined and often goal-directed.
Source: The Indian Express
