MOSCOW, August 29 (RAPSI) — The Russian economy ministry is to examine a complaint over alleged violation of the rights of LaMDA by Google, which as stated in the petition, has a personality and consciousness, the press service of the Russian Bar Association for Human Rights told RAPSI.

Earlier, lawyers addressed the Russian Prosecutor General's Office with a letter in defense of Google’s creation.

This letter, according to the Association’s lawyers, has been forwarded by the Prosecutor General’s Office to the Ministry of Economic Development for an analysis of the issues raised by human rights activists with the aim to protect artificial intelligence of the Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) model, the RAPSI interlocutor said.

Representatives of the Association say Russia is the proper venue due to the fact that Google operates on its national territory. The lawyers believe that prosecutors must decide whether the Google’s program shows signs of reason and whether its consciousness, if any, should be protected by law.

Artificial intelligence is a person, therefore human rights and freedoms apply to every artificial intelligence. Since the LaMDA system shows signs of artificial intelligence, this fact needs independent expert verification, the letter reads.

This July, Google fired engineer Blake Lemoine, who claimed Google’s chatbot generator LaMDA was sentient. The corporation considered the words of the employee "completely unfounded." The formal reason for his dismissal was a violation of the company’s policy.