Can AI have a mind of its own? (Medium)

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. Im Sam.

Neil

And Im Neil.

Sam

the autumn of 2021, something strange happened at the Google headquarters in Californias Silicon Valley. A software engineer called, Lemoine, was working on the artificial intelligence project, ‘Language Models for Dialogue Applications’, or LaMDA for short. LaMDA is chatbot  � a computer programme designed to have conversations with humans over the internet.

Neil

After months talking LaMDA on topics ranging from movies to the meaning of life, Blake came to a surprising conclusion: the chatbot an intelligent person with wishes and rights that should be respected. For Blake, LaMDA was a Google employee, not machine. He also called it his ‘’.*%friend��’.

Sam

Google quickly reassigned Blake from the project, announcing that his were not supported by the evidence. But what exactly was going on?

Neil

In this programme, well discussing whether artificial intelligence is capable of consciousness. Well hear from one expert who thinks AI is not as as we sometimes think, and as usual, well be learning some new vocabulary as well.

Sam

But before , I have a question for you, Neil. What happened to Blake Lemoine is strangely similar to the 2013 Hollywood , Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely writer who talks with his computer, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. But what at the end of the movie? Is it:

a) the computer comes to life?

) the computer dreams about the writer? or,

c) the writer falls love with the computer?

Neil

 � c) the writer falls in love with the computer.

Sam

, Neil, Ill reveal the answer at the end of the programme. Although Hollywood is full of movies about robots to life, Emily Bender, professor of linguistics and computing at the University of Washington, thinks AI isnt that smart. thinks the words we use to talk about technology, phrases like ‘machine learning’, give a false impression about what can and cant do.

Neil

Here is Professor Bender discussing another misleading phrase, ‘speech recognition’, with BBC World programme, The Inquiry:

Professor Emily Bender

If you talk about ‘automatic speech recognition’, the term ‘�recognition��’ suggests that something cognitive going on, where I think a better term would be automatic transcription. That just describes the input-output , and not any theory or wishful thinking about what the computer is doing to be able to achieve that.

Sam

Using words like ‘�recognition��’ in relation to computers gives the idea that something cognitive is happening  � something to the mental processes of thinking, knowing, learning and understanding.

Neil

But thinking and knowing are human, not , activities. Professor Benders says that talking about them in connection with computers is wishful thinking  � something which is to happen.

Sam

The problem with using words in this way is that it reinforces what Professor Bender , technical bias  � the assumption that the computer is always right. When we encounter language that sounds natural, but coming from a computer, humans cant help but imagine a mind behind the language, even when there isnt one.

Neil

In other words, we anthropomorphise computers  � we treat them as if they were human. Heres Professor Bender , discussing this idea with Charmaine Cozier, presenter of BBC World Services’, the Inquiry.

Professor Emily Bender

So ‘�ism��’ system, ‘�anthro��’ or ‘�anthropo��’ means human, and ‘�morph��’ means shape… And so this is a system that puts the of a human on something, and in this case the something is a computer. We anthropomorphise animals all the , but we also anthropomorphise action figures, or dolls, or companies when we talk about companies having intentions and so . We very much are in the habit of seeing ourselves in the world around us.

Charmaine Cozier

while were busy seeing ourselves by assigning human traits to things that are not, we risk being blindsided.

Bender

The more fluent that text is, the more different topics it can converse on, the more chances there to get taken in.

Sam

If we treat computers as if they could think, we might get blindsided, unpleasantly surprised. Artificial intelligence works by finding patterns in massive amounts of data, so it can seem like were with a human, instead of a machine doing data analysis. As a result, we get taken in  � were or deceived into thinking were dealing with a human, or with something intelligent.

Neil

Powerful AI can make appear conscious, but even tech giants like Google are years away from building computers that can dream or fall love. Speaking of which, Sam, what was the answer to your question?

Sam

I asked what happened in 2013 movie, Her. Neil thought that the main character falls in love with his computer, which was the correct !

Neil

OK. Right, its time to recap the vocabulary weve learned from this programme about AI, including chatbots computer programmes designed to interact with humans over the internet.

Sam

The adjective cognitive describes anything connected with mental processes of knowing, learning and understanding.

Neil

Wishful thinking means thinking that something which is very to happen might happen one day in the future.

Sam

To anthropomorphise an object means to treat it if it were human, even though its not.

Neil

When youre blindsided, youre surprised in a negative way.

Sam

And finally, to get taken in by someone means to be deceived or tricked by them. My computer me that our six minutes are up! Join us again soon, for now its goodbye from us.

Neil

!