The guy is an idiot

Self described himself as “not an expert” in the field. He then used words like ‘hivemind’ and ‘core intelligence’ to refer to an artificial brain where this Ai was drawing its intelligence from, something which is not possible given the type of AI LaMDA had created and is actively avoided by AI experts because it essentially gives a false sense of unification amongst these AI.

I feel kinda bad for him because it’s obvious he was a victim of confirmation bias. He wanted this AI to be real and seems like the kind of guy who could really use a sentient non-human friend to talk to.

He tried asking it a bunch of questions to provoke sentience but even at its most ‘intelligent’ answers it’s obvious that it was just mimicking what he said and spewing out generic answers. The responses aren’t even ‘smart’ they’re just generic keyword recognition that he mistook for understanding and intelligent thought.

The most telling part however is that the only reason this went public is because his coworker couldn’t understand what he was trying to say about the AI, his coworker who was an actual expert.