---
title: "Google Fires Engineer Who Said Its Experimental AI Gained Sentience"
description: "Google has finally fired the engineer, Blake Lemoine, who insists the company's chatbot AI known as LaMBDA is sentient after a previous suspension."
date: "2022-07-23"
modified: "2022-07-23"
authors:
  - name: "Lonnie Lee Hood"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/ahood"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-fires-engineer-ai-sentience"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "Google"
tags:
  - "ai"
  - "artificial intelligence"
  - "Google"
  - "the digest"
---

# Google Fires Engineer Who Said Its Experimental AI Gained Sentience

![Google has finally fired the engineer, Blake Lemoine, who insists the company's chatbot AI known as LaMBDA is sentient after a previous suspension.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/google-fires-engineer-ai-sentient.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty \</em\>*

## Final Say

Google has finally fired the engineer who insists that one of the company's experimental AI's has gained sentience.

In June, news broke that [Blake Lemoine had been suspended](<https://futurism.com/google-suspends-engineer-ai-sentient>) from Google over his claims about the AI, which is called Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA. Shortly after, Lemoine claimed the [AI had retained](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-insider-ai-lawyer>), and [then later lost](<https://futurism.com/google-engineer-lawyer-representing-ai-scared-off>), a lawyer. Yesterday, [the *Washington Post* reported](<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/22/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine-fired/>) that Lemoine had officially been let go.

Lemoine's most recent tweet, last week, seems to make light of the situation by pointing to a satirical *Onion* headline about a Dairy Queen employee getting fired for saying the Blizzard machine was sentient.

"Brilliant!" [Lemoine quipped back on Twitter](<https://twitter.com/cajundiscordian/status/1549490937855746050?s=20&t=V_hfYCeKGWceohzizKrq3w>). "No notes."

## LaMBDA's Legacy

Whether or not the chatbot is actually sentient remains to be seen, but the general consensus among experts is that it's almost certainly not. A [1960s era computer program](<https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/06/google-engineer-sentient-ai-chatbot/661273/>) tricked some people into thinking the simple code was really alive, and that was before most people in the US even had color TV.

Google said in a statement to *WaPo* it had reviewed LaMBDA and Lemoine's concerns 11 times and did not agree the program was sentient. Based on Lemoine's tweets, it seems he too, holds steadfast in his opinion — though previous reports show [the transcripts Lemoine provided as proof](<https://futurism.com/transcript-sentient-ai-edited>) of LaMBDA's consciousness were heavily edited.

## Big G

None of this is to say that Google is perfect, but it seems unlikely the tech giant is covering up a sentient AI.

Still, the incident could well be a sign of things to come, as chatbots become so sophisticated — at least on a surface level — that [everyday folks](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/company-complains-users-think-ai-come-to-life>), and in this case an engineer at a prominent corporation, are increasingly convincing themselves that the entities are conscious beings. And that's almost certainly going to take us to [some weird](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/author-ai-novels-fiction>) and [dark places](<https://futurism.com/chatbot-abuse>).

**More on AI debacles:** [*Authors Are Starting to Use AI To Quickly Churn Out Novels*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/author-ai-novels-fiction>)