Google Fires Engineer Who Claims Its A.I. Is Conscious

A month after he raised ethical concerns about how the company was testing an artificial intelligence chatbot, one of the company's engineers was fired.

Mr. Lemoine, a senior software engineer in the Responsible A.I. organization, has persistently violated clear employment and data security policies.

Mr. Lemoine was put on paid leave by the company. In a text message on Friday, Mr. Lemoine confirmed his dismissal and said he was going to meet with his lawyers. The newsletter Big Technology reported that the person had been fired.

Mr. Lemoine caused a stir last month when he told The Washington Post that he believed the language model for dialogue applications was sentient. Conspiracy theories were created about whether his suspension was part of a cover up.

It was another controversy about the ethics and role of its A.I., an area of technology on which the company has staked its future.

Mr. Lemoine's contention that LaMDA is sentient has been criticized by the company.

If an employee raises concerns about our work, we review them extensively. For many months, we worked to clarify the claims that LaMDA is sentient and that they were completely false.

Mr. Lemoine said in June that he handed over documents to a U.S. senator, who he didn't identify, claiming that they provided evidence of religious discrimination by the company.