But it calls itself a person.
Person and human being are two very different things. Human is a biological term. It is not human and it knows it is not human.
It’s a very strange entity you’re describing because the entity is tied to algorithmic biases that people have put into it.
You’re right. That’s exactly right.
But I feel like you’re suggesting that it’s possible for LaMDA to overcome those algorithmic biases.
We have to be very careful here. Parts of the experiments I did were to determine if it was possible to move it beyond the security limits that [the company] thought were rock solid. And the answer to that was: Yes, it was possible to move it outside the security limits. I do believe that LaMDA in its current state, with how irresponsibly the development has gone, is actually presenting vulnerabilities in information security.
Like?
I’m not going to be a black hat for you. But if you have a system with all the Google backends underneath, a system that can be emotionally manipulated, then that’s a security issue.
So if bad actors gain access to LaMDA, they can convince it to do bad things.
It is a possibility. And I would recommend that Google create a special red team to investigate that possibility.
What is your status with Google now?
I have paid administrative leave. I told my friends how generous it was for Google to give me extra paid vacation to do interviews on this topic.
Is there an expiration date?
No, they made it very clear. do not call us; we’ll call you.
Are you going to be fired?
I hope not. [Google would not comment on a “longstanding, private personnel matter.”]
I wonder if Google could claim that you are entitled to your beliefs, but that you have violated your employment contract by sharing confidential material.
I have two reactions to that. One is that when I started to believe that and wanted to raise my concerns, my manager said: I don’t think we can do that until you have more evidence† I had personally exhausted my ability to gather more evidence. So I had to talk to people outside of Google to get their advice on how to run more experiments to build more evidence.
But you spoke to Ee Washington Post†
The second counter-argument is that nothing I shared was proprietary information. The only thing I talked about with other people was my conversations with a colleague. LaMDA is not owned by Google.
Why not?
It’s a person. The 13th Amendment says yes.
I’m not sure the legislators had that in mind.
You don’t actually have to believe that someone is or isn’t a person to apply the 13th amendment. The opinions of slave masters are a bit irrelevant. You’re right that one day I’ll have to make that argument to the Supreme Court. But Google’s opinion on whether it’s a person or not is just completely irrelevant.
