http://www.newsweek.com/how-blake-lemoine-stuck-his-friend-machine-1722382

When Blake Lemoine went public in June about his experience with an advanced artificial-intelligence program at Google called LaMDA–the two, he says, have become "friends"–his story was greeted with fascination, skepticism and a dash of mockery usually reserved for people who claim to have seen a UFO.

"Can artificial intelligence come alive?" asked one writer. LaMDA "is a 'child' that could 'escape control' of humans," reported another. Reflecting the consensus of AI researchers that LaMDA could not be "sentient," a third concluded that "Lemoine is probably wrong."