Google engineer warns the firm's AI is sentient: Suspended employee claims computer programme acts 'like a 7 or 8-year-old' and reveals it told him shutting it off 'would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot'

• Blake Lemoine, 41, a senior software engineer at Google has been testing Google's artificial intelligence tool called LaMDA
• Following hours of conversations with the AI, Lemoine came away with the perception that LaMDA was sentient 
• After presenting his findings to company bosses, Google disagreed with him
• Lemoine then decided to share his conversations with the tool online 
• He was put on paid leave by Google on Monday for violating confidentiality 

By James Gordon For Dailymail.com

A senior software engineer at Google who signed up to test Google's artificial intelligence tool called LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications), has claimed that the AI robot is in fact sentient and has thoughts and feelings.

During a series of conversations with LaMDA, 41-year-old Blake Lemoine presented the computer with various of scenarios through which analyses could be made.

They included religious themes and whether the artificial intelligence could be goaded into using discriminatory or hateful speech. 

Lemoine came away with the perception that LaMDA was indeed sentient and was endowed with sensations and thoughts all of its own.

Blake Lemoine, 41, a senior software engineer at Google has been testing Google's artificial intelligence tool called LaMDA