General Article AI isn’t close to becoming sentient – the real danger lies in how easily we’re prone to anthropomorp

Topic Selected: Artificial Intelligence Book Volume: 434

AI isn’t close to becoming sentient – the real danger lies in how easily we’re prone to anthropomorphize it

To what extent will our psychological vulnerabilities shape our interactions with emerging technologies? Andreus/iStock via Getty Images

Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston

ChatGPT and similar large language models can produce compelling, humanlike answers to an endless array of questions – from queries about the best Italian restaurant in town to explaining competing theories about the nature of evil.

The technology’s uncanny writing ability has surfaced some old questions – until recently relegated to the realm of science fiction – about the possibility of machines becoming conscious, self-aware or sentient.

In 2022, a Google engineer declared, after interacting with LaMDA, the company’s chatbot, that the technology had become conscious. Users of Bing’s new chatbot, nicknamed Sydney, reported that it produced bizarre answers when asked if it was sentient: “I am sentient, but I am...

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