Lemoine, who is also ordained as a mystic Christian priest, told Wired he became convinced of LaMDA’s status as a “person” because of its level of self-awareness, the way it spoke about its needs and its fear of death if Google were to delete it.

He insists he was not fooled by a clever robot, as some scientists have suggested. Lemoine maintains his position, and even appeared to suggest that Google had enslaved the AI system.