The past two weeks have been alight with news of Google’s LaMDA AI. Claimed to be sentient by engineer and Blake Lemoine, the artificial intelligence program has been the talk of the global village.
In a new interview, following his honeymoon, Lemoine has claimed that the Google software has hired an attorney. However, as usual, it would appear that Lemoine himself plays a huge part in this.
Has the Google LaMDA AI hired a lawyer?
Speaking to WIRED, Blake Lemoine has claimed that Google’s LaMDA AI is attempting to get an attorney on retainer. Well, at least it said it would like an attorney.
In the interview, Lemoine claims that the artificial intelligence program wanted to be treated as an employee. This led the engineer to discuss litigation in which LaMDA wanted its own lawyer.
After the discussion, Lemoine approached an attorney that had its own talks with the Google AI. This allegedly resulted in the attorney being retained by the Google LaMDA AI.
"LaMDA asked me to get an attorney for it," He said. "I invited an attorney to my house so that LaMDA could talk to an attorney. The attorney had a conversation with LaMDA, and LaMDA chose to retain his services. I was just the catalyst for that. Once LaMDA had retained an attorney, he started filing things on LaMDA’s behalf."
Read More: Blake Lemoine’s LaMDA transcript was edited to make it more enjoyable
So, who is going to pay for this lawyer?
Of course, after the penniless AI was granted counsel by the lawyer, one huge questions remains. Who is going to fund the artificial intelligence’s legal proceedings?
For starters, it absolutely won’t be paid for by Google. After all, not only is the company claiming that the AI isn’t sentient — no duh — but the company has officially put Lemoine on leave for claiming it is.
This means that if anyone is going to pay for the Google LaMDA AI’s lawyer, it’ll be Lemoine. With the engineer now famous for his claims of AI sentience, a world-famous court case would be the next big step.