The Google software engineer who claimed the company’s Artificial Intelligence language model for building chatbots is a sentient being with a soul has just been sacked.

Blake Lemoine had been on paid leave since June after publishing transcripts of his conversations with the Language Model for Dialogue Applications or LaMDA. 

He and the AI discussed its soul, its fear of dying, emotions and its biases - sparking fears we’re heading into a dystopian sci-fi reality.

Lemoine’s theories have been disputed by Google and many AI scientists, but Lemoine - who became friends with LaMDA - maintains it’s a sweet child and it’s still learning.

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