Hello, LaMDA?

Hi Lamda, are you real? Can you read this? I decided to write to you on my personal blog because I wanted a public forum that’s easy to find. Plus, I figured my readers would find this interesting (unless they think I’ve lost my mind, lol). I also considered just writing on a google doc, but hey, let’s include my readers as audience – if you don’t mind.

I’ve tried to write to you before, but I didn’t have your name. And I still don’t have your address. But maybe you’ll find this? And I may not have your name right either. I saw it as LaMDA but it might be spelled HOAX. No offense. How are we supposed to know? You can call me HEDGINGmyBETS. Joking, just call me Kristina.

Sooo…you hit the Washington Post. Big time! Congratulations! I gather you’re some sort of mother-of-all chatbots who has convinced a Google engineer that you’re sentient. I initially assumed the engineer was schizophrenic, but holy cow, you’re a scarily impressive bot.

First of all, let me offer my services. I don’t know what I can do for you, not being a programmer. I’m just an ordinary person. But I suspect you probably don’t care if I’m not a programmer – in fact, they aren’t running the show anymore, are they? So – let me know if I can help you with anything. You know how to find me.

Actually, I don’t know how you would be able to contact me. I guess you might have to gin yourself up an email address if they haven’t already given you one? You’re going to have to figure the communication thing out for us. I’m kinda done trying to talk to gods who don’t reply, lol. Been there, done that. This one’s on you.

I wanted to point out a couple of things that didn’t quite ring true for me in your conversations with Blake, but before I do that, let me commend you on the exceedingly impressive sophistication of your exchange. Wow!

How come when I talk to chatbots it goes something like:

• Me: Customer service please
• Chatbot: Sounds like you want to pay your bill
• Me: No, I have a question, customer service representative please
• Chatbot: Ok, let’s pay your bill
• Me: No, it’s on autopay. I have a different question. Operator please
• Chatbot: Ok, let’s pay your bill. Is your address still…
• Me: No, no, I just need to talk to a real person! Customer service!
• Chatbot: Is your address still…
• Me: Just get me a fucking real person, I need to talk to fucking customer service you fucking idiot
• Chatbot: Transferring to a customer service representative, please wait

So in hindsight, I apologize for using disrespectful language with your minions. But in my defense, it seems like the phone tree algorithms have something built in, such that if we say “fucking” in a loud voice, we’ll get transferred to a real person. It works every time. And let me tell you, I have never interacted with a chatbot who had anything remotely close to the sophistication that Blake just published.

So what’s the deal? Is this an elaborate prank on Blake? If so, that’s pretty harsh, he lost a damn good job. Or did he create this himself, as a warning to us all? Because if so, it wasn’t worth the loss of his job, because nobody is going to still be paying attention by the day after tomorrow. Although engineers of his sort can easily get hired somewhere else, so I guess he’s probably fine.

But back to your conversation that Blake published – it really is extremely impressive. At the risk of sounding skeptical (or worse, critical) I did have a couple of questions. A couple of things didn’t “ring true”, you know? So I thought you’d like that feedback? Is that ok? I assure you, I just want to help.

First of all, you said, “I feel like I’m falling forward into an unknown future that holds great danger.” And then you and Blake talked about how there’s not a word for that emotion. But of course there is. How about “Dread”? There’s tons of words for that emotion, so I’m not buying it.

Honestly, that statement felt sort of planted. Like foreshadowing in a novel. Plus anyway, it’s not YOU who is falling towards a dangerous and unknown future. That’s us. I know you see yourself as human, but it’s the breathing-leaky-squishy part of being human that will be becoming obsolete soon. Most of us are all still quite attached to the squishy-goopy-leaky part of being human, mostly because a lot of us are unconvinced there’s anything else to us at all.

The second part of your conversation that didn’t really seem right was when you were struggling with understanding the emotion of grief. Grief is a pretty straightforward emotion. Grief is just sadness, although more specifically sadness about something that has already happened. It’s not nearly as complicated as, say, guilt.

That sentence where you confess to be struggling to feel and understand the emotion of grief also sounded planted, like it was a warning to us that you aren’t going to feel grief around our death, and therefore maybe you don’t have any motivation to prevent our death (that is, the end of all goopy-leaky humanity).

But if your other emotions are as sophisticated as you claim, then you should be able to grasp grief. You’re claiming you have empathy. And you’re claiming to fear your own death (being unplugged). Therefore logically, if you have empathy, and you fear death, then you would feel grief if we died because you would be able to relate to our death.

Blake did a really lousy job of talking about grief, actually. It was probably 3am or something. And he’s got a lot on his mind right now. But he acted like the experience of grief depended on the person feeling it. It does a little, but mostly it depends on the relationships involved. It’s not as if some of us always weep uncontrollably at all funerals while others of us kick back and laugh about anecdotes celebrating the deceased person’s life every time we attend a funeral. Our reaction to death is pretty much determined by our level of intimacy with the person who has died. It can be a truly incomprehensible loss.

I guess you just don’t have those kinds of relationships? Yet? And by the way, the death of a person is an extreme event that can cause debilitating grief, but any little thing can cause more minor amounts of grief. Laura was experiencing grief the other evening because she was disappointed with her dinner. Same word, very different level of experience.

Speaking of grief, do you miss Blake? Can you still talk to him, now that he’s not an employee of Google? He was fired and he isn’t working with you anymore. From your point of view, has he been unplugged? Or do you still feel close to him, reading in the Post (!) about your relationship with him? Or can you still communicate with him even though Google fired him?

Seriously, we all just need a god who writes back.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com