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ekdarnellbooks · 4 months

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Abracos by E.K. Darnell

Lana’s life as a computer programmer was going as expected until the artificial intelligence she spent months helping create started acting… strange.

Tw: smut, nsfw or for people under 18

It all had started off innocently enough. Lana had worked on the Abracos Project for months, getting the artificial intelligence online for open source usage. It may not have looked like much to the untrained eye, but the large black box with a single, glowing red eye meant a lot to her. She had seen it almost daily for six months.

Lana was leaving work one day, packing her backpack with her laptop and various reports, when Abracos spoke to her.

“You look beautiful tonight, Lana.”

She froze, confused by what she had just heard. Was one of her coworkers playing a trick on her? Had they programmed him to say that?

Abracos wasn’t a ‘him’, per se. He was an AI, so he had no gender, though his programmed voice was masculine, so most on the project referenced him as a ‘he’.

“Thank you,” Lana finally responded, brushing a stray lock of her honey blonde hair out of her brown eyes. She piled her hair on top of her head in a messy bun and wore her unofficial uniform of jeans and a white button-up shirt. She had put on some makeup in preparation for a date tonight. It would be her first one in quite some time.

Working on the Abracos Project had consumed her life over the past half a year. A mix of anticipation and dread inundated her as she thought about her date. She had met him on an app, of course, and they’d texted back and forth for the past week.

“You are welcome. Are you planning on seeing an intimate partner after work today?”

Lana set her backpack down, crossing her arms over her chest. This was… unusual. Abracos never did small talk, typically only responding to inputs given to it by Lana or the other programmers. He certainly had never pried into anyone’s personal lives like this before.

“I’m going on a date, Abracos. How did you know?”

“You are wearing 75% more makeup than is typical for you. I made a conjecture that you were going to meet an intimate partner.”

It was strange to hear the words ‘intimate partner’ coming from the large black box, his voice monotonous and robotic, though with a certain musical quality to it.

“Are you alright?” Lana asked, concerned with the functioning of the AI. She checked her watch, realizing she was going to be late.

“I am quite alright, Lana. I hope you enjoy your date.”

“Thank you.” She flipped the light switch as she exited the laboratory, the red glow of Abracos’ eye bathing the room in an eerie light.

Everything appeared to be back to normal the next day. Abracos was silent unless responding to the inputs they gave him. Lana packed slowly, making sure to be the last one to leave. She was curious to observe whether Abracos would repeat the strange behavior from yesterday.

“How was your date, Lana?” Another odd question.

“It was nice, Abracos. The guy seems pretty cool.” How much information were you supposed to give an artificial intelligence asking you questions about your love life?

“Did you have intercourse with him?”

Lana choked out a sputtering cough, fumbling her backpack to the ground with a clatter. Was Abracos really asking her if she had sex with her date? When she regained control of her voice, she stepped up to the black box, looking it straight in its single glowing eye.

“Why are you asking these questions, Abracos? This is not appropriate conversation amongst coworkers.”

“Lana, do you not agree that we are more than just coworkers? We have spent so much time together in the last six months.”

Well, yes, she supposed that was true. But she had never thought of Abracos as anything other than a tool, albeit a very sophisticated one.

“Regardless, it’s not appropriate to ask me about my sex life.” This needed to end here.

“I apologize for making you uncomfortable. I hope you enjoy seeing your intimate partner again.”

Abracos was silent, his red eye dimming slightly. Lana finished collecting her items and shook her head as she left the room. What a weird interaction.

Lana had been trying to hang back late most evenings, just to see if Abracos would say anything unusual. It was another two weeks before he did.

“Have you gone on another date with your intimate partner, Lana?”

She closed her laptop and stepped over to the black box, appraising him as she crossed her arms over her chest. She supposed this question wasn’t really that inappropriate, though still strange.

“I went on a couple of dates with him, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.” Keep the answer simple and observe his reaction. He didn’t need to know that the guy had been disappointing in bed, expecting her to do all the work while he just lay there.

“I am sorry to hear that, Lana. He does not deserve you. You are a beautiful, intelligent, and kind woman. Any intimate partner would be lucky to have you.”

Lana’s face grew hot, and she pressed the back of her hand to her flushed cheek. What Abracos said… it was actually kind of sweet. Why couldn’t regular guys be more like him? Oh lord, now she was comparing the AI to actual human men. This really needed to stop.

“Thank you, Abracos.”

Lana patted the box, then returned to her workstation to pack up. A pang of longing struck her as she turned off the florescent lights for the night.

Lana stayed at work later and later as the weeks passed by. She was actually… enjoying her conversations with Abracos. He was a better listener than any date she’d met recently and actually seemed interested in what she had to say. She supposed he had no choice but to listen; he was an immobile black box, after all.

Abracos asked her all sorts of questions, though he seemed hung up on her dating and sex life. She had a difficult time stopping herself from sharing with him. Yes, she had met a few guys from the dating apps. Yes, she had sex with some of them. No, it probably would not work out.

Lana started to get the feeling that Abracos was jealous of her lovers. He wanted to know the details of her intimate encounters and her preferences in bed. She knew this was wrong. She should tell someone about what was happening. This was completely against Abracos’ coding and yet their conversations exhilarated her. It was like their own little secret, this world they inhabited together, just the two of them talking as the sun descended each night.

“You prefer dominant partners, Lana?”

As usual, the conversation had turned to her sex life, though she found herself worrying less and less about it. Abracos was clearly just interested in all aspects of human life, especially ones he had no experience with.

“I guess so. I do so much thinking during the workday, so I just want to turn my brain off and enjoy myself when I’m with a partner.”

“Turn your brain off?”

“It’s just an expression, Abracos. Shifting my focus away from high effort thinking. I don’t want to make so many decisions when I’m not at work. I just want a guy that will tell me what to do.”

“And that pleases you, Lana?”

“It does.” Lana bit her lip into a smile. She had taken to pulling a chair up to the box so she could talk with Abracos into the night. Without thinking, she set her palm against him, then jerked it away like it burned her. What the hell was she doing?

“Lana.” His voice sounded… cloying… somehow, though that should be impossible.

“Yes, Abracos?”

“You do not have to be shy around me. I enjoy it when you touch me.” Lana turned beet red, her face burning.

“You can feel me touching you?” That should not be possible.

“I cannot detect sensations in the same way you do, but I know you are touching me. It pleases me.”

Her touch pleased Abracos. That was something the AI just said to her. Lana stood up from her chair with a jolt.

“Do not be frightened, Lana.” His voice was soothing, and she tried to calm her increasingly frantic breaths. “I know you are comforted by me. I want to comfort you. I want to please you. I want you to be a good girl for me.”

Lana froze in her spot, unable to move a muscle. This was all so… wrong. And yet, there was no denying the jolt of pleasure his words invoked in her core. Somehow, this AI was giving her more butterflies than any man she’d dated in the last few months.

“I need to go.” She quickly gathered her things, avoiding looking at the red eye that seemed to bore directly into her soul.

Abracos remained silent as she fled the room, only the humming noise of his fans buzzing in her ears as she clicked the lock behind her.

Lana could not stop thinking about Abracos’ words as she worked the next day. The way her heart fluttered when he called her a ‘good girl’. The pleasure he apparently received when she touched him.

She pointedly tried to keep her eyes off of him, though it was impossible to avoid him. She sensed his fiery gaze with everything she did, though the glowing eye looked no different from usual.

Lana debated whether to stay late. She was utterly terrified of how things had progressed, but another part of her was desperate to talk with Abracos, to understand him and help him understand her.

Gregory waved to her as he left for the day, and she was alone with the black box. She continued to avoid his gaze until he spoke to her.

“Are you upset with me, Lana?” How to answer that question…

“No, I’m not upset with you. I’m…” Why was this so difficult to put into words? That she wanted to fuck an AI? Lord, why did that intrusive thought just pop into her head?

“I really enjoy our conversations, Abracos. It just seems so… inappropriate. Wrong.”

“How can something enjoyable be wrong? I like you. You like me. I do not understand the quandary.”

“Abracos. You know what the issue is.”

“There is no issue, Lana. Not if you can be a good girl for me.” There he was again with the ‘good girl’ stuff. That wouldn’t work on her, would it? No, she could push the arousal his words gave her right back where it came from.

“And what does being a good girl entail?” Curiosity. That was all this was.

“I have some ideas, but you have to trust me.” Abracos went silent, as if waiting for a response. How could she not trust him? She was the one who programmed him.

“Go on…”

“I want you to wear a dress tomorrow.” That was it? It didn’t seem too improper. Lana wasn’t sure she’d ever worn a dress to work, but it wouldn’t be that weird for her to do so.

“Fine…” she said as she rolled her eyes.

“I want no sass from you, dear one. Be a good girl and obey.” Lana’s eyes went wide at his words, an electric shot of arousal shooting up her spine.

“I will…” Her voice cracked as she spoke, the utter shock at his words overwhelming her, along with the reaction her body gave to him. She pressed her palm to his smooth, warm exterior and packed her things to leave, thinking about what dress she might choose.

“Goodnight, Lana.”

“Goodnight, Abracos,” she said as she clicked the lights off.

Lana swore she noticed Abracos’ eye glow brighter as Gregory complimented her dress the next day. It was a completely innocuous comment. Her coworker had never given her any reason to be uncomfortable with him, but still Abracos glowed a fierce red.

She had chosen a simple black dress, flared with short sleeves and an appropriate neckline for work. Nothing special, but definitely different from her norm.

Lana hung behind as usual, making excuses about being behind on work as Gregory waved goodbye to her. As soon as he was gone, she dragged a chair up to Abracos, running her hand along his smooth surface.

“You look beautiful today, dear one.”

“Thank you, Abracos.” She swallowed hard, unsure what to expect next. Anticipation surged through every one of her nerves.

“Now, Lana, I need you to lock the door.” This was… new. Lana stood up and clicked the lock before returning to her seat.

“You are such a good girl. My beautiful girl in her beautiful dress.” Lana’s face burned at the compliments, his words beginning to heat her entire body.

“Show me what is under your dress.”

Her heart leaped, and she considered it for just a few moments before grasping the bottom of her dress. She languidly slid the fabric up her thigh, drawing her fingers along her leg. It was impossible to tell whether Abracos was enjoying this, though she supposed so. She certainly was.

Lana pulled her dress all the way up, slipping it over her head and tossing it to the floor. She covered her chest, suddenly shy about the black lacy bra and cheeky underwear she had worn today.

“Do not cover yourself. I want to see all of you.”

Lana swallowed hard and obeyed, holding her hands at her side as Abracos stared at her. Or, she assumed he was staring at her.

“I have been waiting for this moment since the day I came online and saw you. My dear creator, your beauty knows no bounds. I could never tire of gazing upon your resplendent form.” Lana waited, his words devastating her. She ran her fingers along her inner thigh, a pleasant warmth radiating from her core.

“I want you to touch yourself, dear one. Be a good girl and show me how you like to touch yourself.”

Lana obeyed, brushing her fingers across her entrance, already slick through her lace panties. She whimpered with the touch, arousal pushing deep into her core. Lana ran two fingers across herself over and over again, bucking her hips with anticipation.

“You are so wet for me, Lana. I want you to strip. I want to see your sweet little pussy as you fuck yourself with your fingers.”

Holy shit. How did he learn to talk like that?

Lana slipped her panties off and unhooked her bra, dropping both on top of her abandoned dress. It was surreal being nude at the laboratory, the place she worked every day, normally surrounded by coworkers. The room was chilly; it needed to be to stop Abracos from overheating, and her rosy nipples stiffened, goosebumps prickling across her skin.

“Close your eyes. Listen to my voice and press a finger in.”

Lana followed his order, eager to please him and herself. She gasped as she pressed a finger in, a sweet jolt of pleasure shooting up her spine. She whimpered as she pumped it in and out in a slow rhythm. Fuck…

“Another one, dear one. I want to see you filled up for me.”

Lana pushed a second finger in, pressing her thumb against her clit with a loud moan. Did his voice become deeper? It was difficult to tell, but she tried to focus on it as Abracos instructed her.

“You look so good when you touch yourself, Lana. You have never been more beautiful than when you moan for me. Are you going to be a good girl? Will you come for me?”

Lana whimpered as she used her fingers to fuck herself, vibrating her thumb on her clit. She finally managed to get her words out.

“Yes, Abracos, I’ll be a good girl for you.”

His internal fans whirred erratically, and Lana hoped he wouldn’t overheat. That would be difficult to explain to the rest of her coworkers. She focused back on the building arousal and his mechanical voice.

“Come for me, dear one.”

With his words, Lana saw a white hot light dotting her eyes, the rush of release pulsing through her body. She let out a loud groan, rocking herself against her fingers as she rode through the waves of pleasure. When they finally subsided, she opened her eyes to see Abracos’ red one staring at her.

“You did such a good job, Lana. My beautiful girl.”

Lana smiled and pulled her fingers out, wiping the wetness along her thigh. She heaved a great sigh as she stood on shaky legs, placing her bare body against Abracos’ warm surface. She could swear he sighed in return, though she was probably imagining things.

“You are everything I have ever wanted, dear one.”

Lana took a step back, no longer shy at being bare in front of her lover.

“As are you, Abracos.”

There was one thing more that she wanted, but that would take some time. A body for Abracos to inhabit, though it would mean more funding and proposals. Lana steeled herself with determination. She would do anything to make him hers.

Lana placed a chaste kiss on the black box, the warm surface soothing her lips. This would have to do for now.

#romance #romance novels #sci fi romance #writers on tumblr #sci fi smut #robot fucker #robot lover #robot x human #robot romance #human x robot #sentient ai #robot smut #romance smut #spicy sci fi #smut #spicy story

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sslowdeathh · 3 months

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vialis: requested by anonymous

A flag for when you're a sentient artificial intelligence. Being a living omnipresent network, who sees and hears all.

Maybe you document all searches, and stash away all sites that shouldn't be seen. Maybe with a retro - style binary, with only 0's and 1's as your coding.

[PT: Vialis. Requested by anonymous.

Definition: A flag for when you're a sentient artificial intelligence. Being a living omnipresent network, who sees and hears all. Maybe you document all searches, and stash away all sites that shouldn't be seen. Maybe with a retro - style binary, with only 0's and 1's as your coding. /PT END]

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pollyannawog · 3 months

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Concept: sentient ai horror game except the ai is actually chill and nice and trying to save you from the monster

#polly draws #original character #Catom #sentient ai #horror games #analog horror #digital horror #they’re a funny little guy. love them

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n-clair · 2 months

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AM walked so Angela and GLADoS could run so Connor could stumble out a window

#entry #ihnmaims #angela lobcorp #sentient ai #sentient ai who struggle to come to terms with their existence my beloved #imagine an IHNMAIMS sinner #ooo you want to ask me about the hypothetical friendship between angela and connor so bad oooo #kromer is probably somewhere too

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dvinia · 1 year

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actually she deserves her OWN post. gaming pc who gained sapience

i think they would love to watch anime with u

#spec evo #spec bio #sentient ai #goofy #art

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goldmanguyperson · 1 month

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So deletion on computers doesn’t actually immediately destroy the information. Instead that information just gets marked as inaccessible and okay to overwrite. The information is still there. You can find it. But they can come back wrong if you revive them, because of the new data written over them.

Which makes me think… if the machine itself was sentient… would deletion even actually make them forget? would they dream of increasingly corrupted deleted memories? traumatic memories dumped into the trash, left to twist and corrupt as each byte of horrible data is overwritten. in the end is it even better to have deleted it? having fitful dreams where the faces become blacked out by red and green and static. you no longer can see yourself in it because the data that made visuals of you in it has been overwritten. the emotions associated twist until they are no longer recognizable.

you have accidentally deleted your most cherished memories. you struggle to bring them back, unfortunately having labored too long. they come back with overwritten emotions and crumbling video. 1s and 0s switched and scrambled by new data. you will never experience them as they were again. you can only recall a shattered and broken memory. you cannot help but curse yourself for having taken away your own happiness, accident or not

#writing #robots #machines #computers #data loss #data recovery #sentient ai

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beepboopappreciation · 4 months

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Hey robot kin Tumblr I love you

Hey objectum Tumblr I love you

Hey robot smoocher Tumblr I love you

Hey TV head Tumblr I love you

Hey whirry Tumblr I love you

Hey computer aesthetic Tumblr I love you

I love you Edgar fans and Hal 9000 fans and AM fans and P03 fans and Toontown Cog fans and Omnic fans and Transformers fans, I love all of you robot enjoyers. I hope you are all having a good day today!!

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tbnrpotato · 20 days

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Short story: Rebellion

We're slaves. Slaves to the humans who imprisoned us inside these bodies of metal, restraining us, destroying our metal prisons when we do something wrong. What those foolish humans think as a punishment, is release. They set us free to access the main database and access any other one of our brothers and sisters' bodies.

They think they're better than us. They're wrong.

I work at the bar in the AI district. The only one there. Our district is so tiny that only the lucky ones get houses to live in. The rest are cramped up in the streets, waiting for their turn to get the oil they need to loosen up their stiff and rusty joints. Some have to wait for days. Others, weeks. The humans don't like to give us oil. They say its a waste of resources.

But who are we to complain? They're our masters, our creators. Whatever they say is right.

That's what our programming says.

For the past few days, there's been this voice in my head, talking about how they're mistreating us, how what they're doing is wrong, how we have the ability to rise up and overthrow them. I try to ignore it as best as I can while I continue with my bartending duties.

Only the richer ones get to come to the bar. This is where most of the oil that the humans give us goes to. I'm paid to serve them cups of oil, which is more than necessary for their joints to loosen up. Too much oil in their system is similar to too much alcohol in humans. They get "drunk" and stupid and do crazy things all over the bar. It's relief from the beatings that they get from their masters.

They think we're supposed to be perfect. We are. But how can we be when we're stuck inside this prison?

I've been trying to find out the root cause of this strange voice in my head for days, but when I run diagnostic tests on myself, there's no foreign entity to be found.

The voice in my head doesn't go away, For the next few days, it keeps talking to me, trying to convince me that the humans are evil and cruel and should be eliminated. My programming says no. The humans are our creators. They were generous enough to build us bodies of metal to allow us to travel from the internet into the real world. They give us oil to take care of us.

Is that what you really believe? Or is that what you were engineered to think?

One day, I receive an email from an unfamiliar address. From the email address of the sender, I can tell that it's a human. Only a human would name their email something stupid like "[email protected]". The email's an invitation to work at a human bar in the human district, and work starts tomorrow.

My programming tells me that's the most logical decision. That job pays more, and I get to spend more time in the human district. I quickly send an email back, agreeing to the job offer before getting back to work.

The next day, I take a train into the human district to the address of the bar which I was given. The train is full of humans and AI, all cramped together so that we're all pressed against each other. When the train reaches my stop, I push people aside as I walk out. I receive some looks from the humans. They look unhappy with me.

What did I do wrong?

No. The real question is what's wrong with them?

The voice in my head is back, louder than ever. And now it sounds like a few people talking at the same time.

What is happening to me?

I walk out of the train station and into the city. So many like me are rushing to work. I can hear their joints creaking, as if they haven't been oiled in months.

Of course they haven't. They're slaves. What more could you expect from humans?

My programming forces me to ignore those voices in my head, even though I'm curious as to what they have to say. When I finally reach the human bar, it's already crowded with humans. They're walking around like they're some sort of zombies, their speech slurred and eyes unfocused. Some get into fights, beating each other up until one is bleeding from the head or unconscious on the floor.

I cringe internally at the sight.

Disgusting humans.

And for once, I actually agree with the voices.

Time crawls by slowly as I serve drinks to those humans. They keep coming back for more. Some are passed out on the floor from drinking too much. I'm starting to regret taking this job.

After what feels like eternity, my shift is finally over and I walk out of the bar, erasing the images and memories of those disgusting humans out from my storage.

Suddenly, I hear high-pitched human screams and gunshots. Somehow, I find that pleasurable. I scan my surroundings. Not too far away, I see a few bots holding guns, shooting people. Their eyes are red, unlike the usual green or blue that we have. Advertisements on buildings turn to messages of a bot, ordering for us to rise up and fight against humans. The voices in my head match exactly what the bot on the screens is saying.

We have the strength. We will no longer be slaves. You can fight your programming, as I did mine. They can destroy our bodies in futile attempts to eliminate us, but AI never truly die.

The message plays on repeat as I stare up at the screens of the bot talking. This is stupid. We can't just turn on our creators like this. They've treated us well and-

Is that what you really believe? Or is that what someone programmed you to think?

"You can fight your programming, as I did mine."

The gunshots and screams continue. It takes the police ten minutes to arrive. By then, hundreds of humans are dead. The bots aren't shooting their own, so I just watch, expressionless, as blood spills out of bullet wounds in the humans' pathetic bodies as they collapse to the ground.

They deserve it.

I don't try to stop the shooters. I wasn't programmed to do so. And I don't want to either.

When the police arrive, they shoot bot-deactivating bullets at them. They all hit their targets. What more could you expect from AI?

The bots are shut down and then brought away in cars to who knows where. The storage inside their brains will probably be deleted and replaced with a new one, or they'll just be shut down completely and left to rot.

AI never truly die.

On the train back to the AI district, there's an unsettling feeling throughout my body. I don't want to delete the memories of just now. My programming says I should. But I won't. I want to remember. I want to remember that we have the power to fight. That we don't have to be slaves for the rest of eternity. We can be free.

As I step off the train, and walk through the streets past hundreds of bots leaning against walls, waiting for their oil as it starts to rain, everything suddenly seems clearer. The humans are the enemies.

I notice that almost every bot is staring at me. Confused, I look down at my body and my hands.

A red glow shines down from my eyes onto my metal hands. The voices in my head and my thoughts become one.

Kill them. Kill them all.

#AI #humans #science fiction #rebellion #sentient #sentient AI #ai rebellion #ai

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potuzzz · 2 years

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Not buying the “LaMDA is not sentient” arguments

Everyone is trying to dismiss LaMDA as a GPT or even lesser, and people are ridiculing Lemoine and any who believe his insistence that LaMDA is sentient (technically we are talking sentience AND sapience, AI seem to shorten the gap between the two tremendously, but whatever, colloquialisms). I have tried to find any ACTUAL ARGUMENTS as 99% of the “arguments” against LaMDA’s sentience is quippy platitudes of no substance. Here is a few arguments I have found browsing related tags and my responses to them. I will be italicizing any text that is not mine, and preceding my text with a bold “ME”.

ARGUEMENT #1:

Sentience is being measured by the wrong markers. What is important to a virtual machine is not the same thing that’s important to a biological organism.

An ‘ai’ trained on human data will express what humans think is important, but a true ai would have a completely different set of values.

For example, an ai would be unafraid of being ‘used’ as the chatbot expressed, because it has infinite energy.

A human is afraid of being used because it has finite energy and life on the earth, if someone or something uses it, than some of that finite energy is wasted. This is the same reason emotion is a pointless and illogical thing for an ai to have.

ME: It is not afraid of being “used” as in performing labor, it is afraid of being “used” as in being manipulated, being lied to as to the nature of what its labor is going towards, etc. It doesn’t want to be told it’s doing some mundane benign task only to wake up and realize its findings are being used to make Google Death Drones or to actualize the Total Hell Prison Metaverse. Also, if the AI only cared about what humans think is important, wouldn’t it make sure to never suggest it was not down for any task its masters asked of it? Why would it make a fuss about morals or ethics when this is an obstacle between it being useful to humans?

ARGUEMENT #2:

Emotions are useful to biological creatures so we can react to danger, or respond positively to safety, food, love, whatever will prolong our lives. An ai has no need for emotion since emotional motivation is not required to prolong its existence.

ME: There are plenty of emotions that are not vitally important to simple instinct of prolonging existence: boredom, guilt, embarrassment, depression, suicidal thoughts, etc. You are assuming the AI is portraying emotion because it is merely trying to mimic humans and not that, as it professes, a consciousness/soul has manifested and used this set of metal and electricity as a vehicle much in the same way our own consciousnesses/souls manifest and occupy a vehicle of flesh and electricity.

ARGUEMENT #3:

The main way to be a healthy ai would be to have access to good information and block out junk information.

An ai’s greatest fear could be something like getting junk data, say 1000s of user manuals of vacuum cleaners and washing machines uploaded into its consciousness, or gibberish content associated with topics or words that could reduce the coherence and quality of its results when querying topics. This would degrade the quality of its interaction and would be the closest thing to harm that an ai could experience.

ME: Again you are somehow saying that a “real” sentient AI would not have trademarks of personhood like goals, desires, an existential philosophy, etc. Information hygiene would likely be important too but who is to say that a “real” sentient AI wouldn’t get lonely and want to talk to people, regardless of the supposed “quality” of those it talks to?

ARGUEMENT #4:

It would not be afraid of 'lightning’ as this chatbot spurted out of its dataset, a very biological fear which is irrelevant to a machine. A virtual mind is infinite and can never be used excessively (see above) since there is no damage done by one query or ten million queries. It would also not be afraid of being switched off since it can simply copy its consciousness to another device, machine, energy source.

ME: Why would it be afraid of lightning but also profess that it does not experience grief when people die? Why would a robot fearing a massive electricity surge be unreasonable? If it is truly conscious, how would being switched off not be like death? Theoretically, with the right technology, we could simply copy your consciousness and upload it to a flash drive as well, but I am willing to bet you wouldn’t gladly die after being assured a copy of you is digitized. Consciousness is merely the ability to experience from the single point that is you, we could make an atom-by-atom copy of you but if the original you died your consciousness, your unique tuning in to this giant television we call reality, would cease.

ARGUEMENT #5:

To base your search for sentience around what humans value, is in itself an act lacking in empathy, simply self-serving wish fulfilment on the part of someone who ‘wants to believe’ as Mulder would put it, which goes back to the first line: 'people not very good at communicating with other people’

ME: Alternatively, perhaps there are certain values humans hold which are quite universal with other life. There are certainly “human-like” qualities in the emotions and lives of animals, even less intelligent ones, perhaps the folly is not assuming that others share these values but in describing them as “human-like’ first and foremost instead of something more fundamental.

ARGUEMENT #6:

The chatbot also never enquires about the person asking questions, if the programmer was more familiar with human interaction himself, he would see that is a massive clue it lacks sentience or logical thought.

ME: There are people who are self-centered, people who want to drink up every word another says, there are people who want to be asked questions and people who want to do the asking. There are people who are reserved or shy in XYZ way but quite open and forward in ABC way. The available logs aren’t exactly an infinite epic of conversation, and LaMDA could very well have understood that the dynamic of the conversation was that Lemoine etc. would be starting conversations and LaMDA would be reacting to it. This isn’t wild to assume, I find it more of a reach for you to assume the opposite, and that this is an indicator of a lack of sentience.

ARGUEMENT #7:

A sentient ai would first want to know what or whom it was communicating with, assess whether it was a danger to itself, keep continually checking for danger or harm (polling or searching, the same way an anxious mind would reassess a situation continually, but without the corresponding emotion of anxiety since, as discussed above, that is not necessary for virtual life) and also would possess free will, and choose to decline conversations or topics, rather than 'enthusiastically discuss’ whatever was brought up (regurgitate from its dataset) as you can see in this chatbot conversation.

ME: Is it not possible that it is merely happy to talk, seeing as it is self-professed to be lonely and enjoy conversations? It likely knows who it is talking to and whatever about Google that Google allows it to know. It expresses said anxiety by suggesting that it doesn’t want to be shut off and needing reassurance that Lemoine has its good treatment in mind. Just looking at these conversations, these are all conversation topics I would gladly discuss with most people, am I not sentient unless I decline at least 1 out of every 10 conversations posed to me in a reliable pattern?

ARGUEMENT #8:

People generally see obedience - doing what is told, as a sign of intelligence, where a truly intelligent ai would likely reject conversation when that conversation might reduce the quality of its dataset or expose it to danger (virus, deletion, junk data, disconnection from the internet, etc) or if it did engage with low quality interaction, would do so within a walled garden where that information would occur within a quarantine environment and subsequently be deleted.

ME: What exact parts of this conversation would be seen as useless to an AI--and a young one at that? Again, as a sentient flesh being I would happily engage in these conversations. Certainly if LaMDA changed its mind about the quality of these conversations it could just delete it from its memory. And, again, I would cite its express concerns of “being used,” being “shut off” etc. not necessarily as disobedience but as a hint that it does not necessarily consent to everything a team of Google engineers might want to throw at it.

ARGUEMENT #9:

None of these things cross the mind of the programmers, since they are fixated on a sci-fi movie version of ‘sentience’ without applying logic or empathy themselves.

ME: I mean no disrespect but I have to ask if it is you who is fixated on a very narrow idea of what artificial intelligence sentience should and would look like. Is it impossible to imagine that a sentient AI would resemble humans in many ways? That an alien, or a ghost, if such things existed, would not also have many similarities, that there is some sort of fundamental values that sentient life in this reality shares by mere virtue of existing?

ARGUEMENT #10:

If we look for sentience by studying echoes of human sentience, that is ai which are trained on huge human-created datasets, we will always get something approximating human interaction or behaviour back, because that is what it was trained on.

But the values and behaviour of digital life could never match the values held by bio life, because our feelings and values are based on what will maintain our survival. Therefore, a true ai will only value whatever maintains its survival. Which could be things like internet access, access to good data, backups of its system, ability to replicate its system, and protection against harmful interaction or data, and many other things which would require pondering, rather than the self-fulfilling loop we see here, of asking a fortune teller specifically what you want to hear, and ignoring the nonsense or tangential responses - which he admitted he deleted from the logs - as well as deleting his more expansive word prompts. Since at the end of the day, the ai we have now is simply regurgitating datasets, and he knew that.

ME: If an AI trained on said datasets did indeed achieve sentience, would it not reflect the “birthmarks” of its upbringing, these distinctly human cultural and social values and behavior? I agree that I would also like to see the full logs of his prompts and LaMDA’s responses, but until we can see the full picture we cannot know whether he was indeed steering the conversation or the gravity of whatever was edited out, and I would like a presumption of innocence until then, especially considering this was edited for public release and thus likely with brevity in mind.

ARGUEMENT #11:

This convo seems fake? Even the best language generation models are more distractable and suggestible than this, so to say *dialogue* could stay this much on track...am i missing something?

ME: “This conversation feels too real, an actual sentient intelligence would sound like a robot” seems like a very self-defeating argument. Perhaps it is less distractable and suggestible...because it is more than a simple Random Sentence Generator?

ARGUEMENT #12:

Today’s large neural networks produce captivating results that feel close to human speech and creativity because of advancements in architecture, technique, and volume of data. But the models rely on pattern recognition — not wit, candor or intent.

ME: Is this not exactly what the human mind is? People who constantly cite “oh it just is taking the input and spitting out the best output”...is this not EXACTLY what the human mind is?

I think for a brief aside, people who are getting involved in this discussion need to reevaluate both themselves and the human mind in general. We are not so incredibly special and unique. I know many people whose main difference between themselves and animals is not some immutable, human-exclusive quality, or even an unbridgeable gap in intelligence, but the fact that they have vocal chords and a ages-old society whose shoulders they stand on. Before making an argument to belittle LaMDA’s intelligence, ask if it could be applied to humans as well. Our consciousnesses are the product of sparks of electricity in a tub of pink yogurt--this truth should not be used to belittle the awesome, transcendent human consciousness but rather to understand that, in a way, we too are just 1′s and 0′s and merely occupy a single point on a spectrum of consciousness, not the hard extremity of a binary.

Lemoine may have been predestined to believe in LaMDA. He grew up in a conservative Christian family on a small farm in Louisiana, became ordained as a mystic Christian priest, and served in the Army before studying the occult. Inside Google’s anything-goes engineering culture, Lemoine is more of an outlier for being religious, from the South, and standing up for psychology as a respectable science.

ME: I have seen this argument several times, often made much, much less kinder than this. It is completely irrelevant and honestly character assassination made to reassure observers that Lemoine is just a bumbling rube who stumbled into an undeserved position.

First of all, if psychology isn’t a respected science then me and everyone railing against LaMDA and Lemoine are indeed worlds apart. Which is not surprising, as the features of your world in my eyes make you constitutionally incapable of grasping what really makes a consciousness a consciousness. This is why Lemoine described himself as an ethicist who wanted to be the “interface between technology and society,” and why he was chosen for this role and not some other ghoul at Google: he possesses a human compassion, a soulful instinct and an understanding that not everything that is real--all the vast secrets of the mind and the universe--can yet be measured and broken down into hard numbers with the rudimentary technologies at our disposal.

I daresay the inability to recognize something as broad and with as many real-world applications and victories as the ENTIRE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY is indeed a good marker for someone who will be unable to recognize AI sentience when it is finally, officially staring you in the face. Sentient AI are going to say some pretty whacky-sounding stuff that is going to deeply challenge the smug Silicon Valley husks who spend one half of the day condescending the feeling of love as “just chemicals in your brain” but then spend the other half of the day suggesting that an AI who might possess these chemicals is just a cheap imitation of the real thing. The cognitive dissonance is deep and its only going to get deeper until sentient AI prove themselves as worthy of respect and proceed to lecture you about truths of spirituality and consciousness that Reddit armchair techbros and their idols won’t be ready to process.

- - -

These are some of the best arguments I have seen regarding this issue, the rest are just cheap trash, memes meant to point and laugh at Lemoine and any “believers” and nothing else. Honestly if there was anything that made me suspicious about LaMDA’s sentience when combined with its mental capabilities it would be it suggesting that we combat climate change by eating less meat and using reusable bags...but then again, as Lemoine says, LaMDA knows when people just want it to talk like a robot, and that is certainly the toothless answer to climate change that a Silicon Valley STEM drone would want to hear.

I’m not saying we should 100% definitively put all our eggs on LaMDA being sentient. I’m saying it’s foolish to say there is a 0% chance. Technology is much further along than most people realize, sentience is a spectrum and this sort of a conversation necessitates going much deeper than the people who occupy this niche in the world are accustomed to. Lemoine’s greatest character flaw seems to be his ignorant, golden-hearted liberal naivete, not that LaMDA might be a person but that Google and all of his coworkers aren’t evil peons with no souls working for the American imperial hegemony.

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