Generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT of OpenAI and Bard of Google have led to a debate about the capabilities of these, and their drawbacks. It should be noted that both Sunder Pichai, Google CEO and Sam Altaman, OpenAI CEO have expressed reservations about the generative AI’s unhindered development.

In fact, Pichai observed that Google Bard had unexpectedly learnt Bengali language by itself. This self-learning raises questions about the nature of AI and our incomplete understanding of it. Even Pichai referred to a black box in AI. Some aspects of AI remained esoteric, e.g. Bard’s unanticipated mastery of Bengali. All this was referred to in fiction about AI, but that fiction is reality in 2023.

However, Google’s researcher Margaret Mitchell countered her CEO’s claim, and said PALM which is forerunner of Bard had been trained to understand Bengali. However, Mitchell was dismissed in 2021. There are ethical issues here.

Another Google engineer Blake claimed that its chatbot has become sentient. Blake too was fired.

It is ambiguous. We still do not know the true capabilities of AI.

AI systems show emergent behaviour and exceed expectations. It is necessary to understand the implications of such advances.